


Song of the Starlight Gems

by dehautdesert



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Feels, Backstory, Blind Thranduil, Co-Dependency, Doorstopper, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Functioning Alcoholic, Harmful for Minors, Ice Powers, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intrigue, Kidnapping, Multi, Murder Mystery, POV Alternating, Post BotFA, Thranduil's A+ Babysitting, Thranduil's A+ Life, Thranduil's A+ Parenting, Touch-Empathic Elves, Violence, horrible things happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2018-10-27 02:18:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10799622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dehautdesert/pseuds/dehautdesert
Summary: As an ancient enemy of Thranduil returns, a new enemy of Thorin steals out of the shadows and back before anyone can see them for what they are. These two foes surfacing simultaneously creates a perfect storm that threatens to throw the whole region into chaos - if it does not freeze over entirely under the magic of the ice-witch who comes to destroy the line of Oropher.Two kingdoms face two different kinds of helplessness.And two kings, both struggling to reign in their greatest flaws, may both lose what they treasure most of all.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, I went and did it this time. Sorry anyone who sees this who's waiting for me to update my other fics. They're not abandoned; a friend of mine just convinced me to finally watch the Hobbit movies at new year's and I've been writing this ever since. Twenty chapters are done, and I am trash.
> 
> Anyway, this is set in the magical post-BOTFA-where-no-Company-members-died land and Thorin and Bilbo are married with a daughter. Expect horrible, horrible things in this story. Previous attempts at writing this note have ended up threatening to become essays, so I will say only the following now, and maybe future chapters will say more...
> 
> I'm not a Tolkien expert. I got into it in a big way back when the LotR movies came out, so some stuff has stuck in my mind, but expect this story to be a mix of book-canon, movie-canon, and the depraved contents of my mind. Original character names will be vaguely Tolkien-sounding gibberish. Now, to prevent any more of my boring babbling about my work, here's a prologue, in which we hope Thorin took out anti ice-witch insurance on the contents of his treasury...

 

*~*~*

 

 

Once upon a time…

…

There was a great elven king who lived in an enchanted forest…

…

He had a son, whom he loved very much…

…

But one day…

…

_"My friend, you must forgive me for what I am about to ask of you."_

...

…

The king's son was wounded terribly…

…

_"You know I will, my liege. After everything fate has thrown at us over the years, you know that not only would I forgive you anything, but that I would do anything you asked of me as well."_

…

…

And the king knew…

…

_"This can continue no longer, my friend. And I am prepared to go to any lengths to end it."_

…

… that the witch who had wounded his beloved child…

…

…

_"Any lengths?"_

…

… that the witch had to be stopped.

…

_"Whatever it takes."_

…

So he and his chosen companion rode off from the forest one night…

…

_"Forgive me."_

…

…

…

And only the trees knew where they went from there.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

CRACK.

…

CRACK-CRACK.

…

CRACK.

…

…

CRACK-CRACK.

CRACK.

…

The rock cleaved to the ice beneath the Lonely Mountain.

Where water had seeped into cracks that dwelt far from the great furnaces of Erebor it froze and expanded as it did so, splitting the cracks open wider. Not since long before the dragon came had there been a winter quite this cold, and all over the re-building city the miners, builders, architects and anyone else who could be spared had been set to work to watch that the foul weather did not set their hard work back.

The mountain was five years free from its oppression under Smaug, filled instead by thousands of dwarves who had either returned to their former home or decided to emigrate since the news of Smaug's defeat and Thorin Oakenshield's victory over Azog the Defiler had spread throughout Middle Earth. Many had even been born there since – there having been a baby boom since the dragon's death the likes of which dwarf-kind had not seen for an Age, if ever – including the… _unusual_ child born to the new King himself, and the new King's unusual consort.

_She_ had little interest in that – save for how the squat and hairy rodents might have hindered her in her endeavour, though she did not consider that to be too likely to delay her long. She was far older than their memories extended, and far grander than any foe they'd ever defeated – for if her sources were to be believed, the pitiful dwarves had not even slain the dragon by themselves.

She moved through the stone halls like a snowflake in a blizzard, darting here and there, and everywhere she went the CRACKing sound followed – until at last she'd reached the place she'd sought.

The treasury.

It was well-guarded, so far as repulsive dwarves could manage such a thing. Their warriors had lined the halls that lead to the room and seven were stationed in front of the great doors that comprised the entrance she had chosen. (the main one; she had no need to seek another). All had dark brown or black beards flowing from beneath their helms, save one – the one she judged the youngest – whose mane was a rusty, clownish red.

They did not bother her. The door was another matter, for it needed more than simply a key to open. Had she been at her full strength her magic could have turned her fully into wind, and that wind might have slipped through a crack without a problem, but such complex spells eluded her in her current form, and indeed, in her rage.

She came in too fast for the guards to see more than a flash of white, before the brutal wind she brought in with her had them all shield their faces, a blind spot through which she leapt up onto the ceiling of the great cavern and clung to the rock upside-down, pouring her cold through it to the treasure-hall beyond.

The oldest of the seven dwarves threw the wind off first, stepped forth and looked wildly around.

"Druk, Arun – what was that!?" he roared.

One of the two nearest the mouth of the entrance turned back towards him. "A wind, Stur?" he called back, uncertainly.

" 'twas like no wind I've ever seen, that's for sure!" grumbled another. "This far within the mountain and all!?"

"Dark magic?" asked the youngest, the redhead.

"Quiet!" barked the eldest. He and the others were looking in every direction but up, the fools, yet this one had at least enough experience to have drawn his long sword.

Long for a dwarf, that was. She had seen far greater on her loathsome elven enemies.

"That was more than a wind, sprung from dark magic or not," declared the leader. "Arun, Druk, alert the watch – "

CRACK-CRACK.

Her ice had made it through the deep walls.

"That came from inside the treasury!" cried the dwarf nearest to the door, and the one in the best position to know.

And as one could always count on a dwarf to let their love of gold overpower their reason, it was no surprise that he immediately twisted three dials of what had appeared to be mere decoration on the doors until they clicked.

"Wait – Yuli, no!"

She grinned.

The doors swung open with a groan and were not more than half a foot wide before she flew between them, towards her prize – her own.

Her reward to 'Yuli' for letting her in was to allow him to serve her again as a barrier to the other dwarves; a shroud of ice swept down over him in her wake, enveloping the ugly creature and creeping up the sides of the doors, sticking him between them so his comrades couldn't follow her in.

"Mahal's hammer – YULI!"

A slight exhaustion in the wake of that spell brought her down amongst the golden hoard – and what a hoard it was; mountains of coin from wall to wall, gleaming, glaring, gaudy as she'd ever seen and throwing the harsh, unwelcome light of fire around the room as the individual pieces tumbled down their hills when her weight displaced them, the gold overpowering all other colours save for odd flashes of ruby here and there.

If the nerves beneath her skin had not been magic-frozen into numbness millennia ago, it probably would have stung. As it was, the fall was more annoying in that such an average spell had sapped her strength enough to ground her – even temporarily – in her current state.

And it had knocked her crown askew and all.

She righted both it and herself before any could take notice, casting out all her senses to locate what she had come for and spotting it almost immediately – for how could she not?

Her love, her own…

Her dearest treasure. Forgotten in a dwarf's collection, left to moulder with all his repulsive gold. She should kill him too for that – freeze his entire mountain solid, and perhaps she would.

After she'd dealt with the elf.

BOOM!

She turned back towards the door, halfway between it and her prize. It appeared the dwarves had at least the brute strength to force the iced up doors open and they scurried into the room like rats. There was the other thing you could count on dwarves for: to allow their love of kin and comrades to overpower their reason. She said this because all six of the remaining dwarves had run in to confront her, meaning none had run off for aid after all.

They ran in in as best a formation as they could manage, but beyond the main stone entrance the terrain of coins and jewels betrayed them, and she wasn't even noticed so far above their heads for long moments.

"Gimli!" barked the leader, "see to Yuli!"

The young redhead fell back, but as he did his head happened to turn in her direction, and he gaped at her, open-mouthed. Then, with a slight stutter:

"Stur – up there!"

His companions swivelled and looked in the direction he was pointing.

Thus did they see her for what she was at last, as now the door had been opened for her she had no need to hide from such pathetic creatures.

For a good long while she contented herself with the expressions on their faces as they beheld her glory, her beauty, her majesty…

And then, as any fool could have seen coming a mile off, one of their number threw his war hammer at her.

She deflected it with a blast of ice and flitted towards him at the same time. Not wanting to actually touch the beast she changed direction at the last minute to fly past him, sending him a little less ice than she had his fellow – denying him such a quick death when she only encased his lower half, freezing him in place to a mound of coin.

Before a repeat of the same moment of tiredness could overcome her she knew she had to deal with the others. Three of them were grouped closer behind their leader, in a split-second she had conjured great spears of ice to burst up from beneath the coins.

But only one of them struck true; the coins now worked against her as well as the dwarves. The middle one was speared right through the heart and pinned in place, the one on the right's helmet was grazed from her second spear, swirled and fell, head clanging against a mighty square column, the one on the left dodged the ice entirely, though he too slipped, and the leader with the sword struck out wildly and furiously at her, but far, far too slowly.

So she turned her attention to him, moving down on the ground to save some energy and stopping right in front of his face, which startled him. Up close she saw his ugliness in more detail than she could have ever wished to, black hair grizzled and sprouting from all over the lower part of his face like weeds, a pale scar across his nose and brow where flesh had been gouged out and filled in carelessly – though such a nose could have done to have a bit more taken off in her opinion – and on his other eyebrow a large wart, encircled by black ink designs as if specifically to draw attention to it.

He lifted up his sword after a spilt-second of being stunned by her appearance, but that brief time was more than long enough for her to catch his wrist and pour her coldness into him.

While he bellowed in his agony, his blood froze solid in his veins, and soon enough the noises he made were choked off into nothing.

"Stur!" cried the last remaining dwarf, running towards them and straight into the path of a fourth ice spear she raised up from beneath the gold.

This dwarf must have had some luck about him, for again the coins broke apart beneath his feet before he reached the point where he would have been speared. He pulled himself up again and growing tired of his ridiculous attempts to thwart her she simply struck out with a hammer of ice she created from air and slammed it against his temple before he realised she was holding any weapon at all.

He dropped like a stone and rolled down the side of coins to a depression within them, where he lay still – dead or unconscious she cared not, not so close to reclaiming what had been denied her all these long years...

Some more gold coins trickled down the mounds some ways away.

Of course. That last dwarf had not been the last dwarf – there was still the young redhead to deal with.

She flew above the mess again and saw the youth heading as swiftly as he could over such ground back to the door. Running for help at last – so he at least had an ounce of sense, or was merely a coward, perhaps. In truth it mattered little if he did seek aid, she would have what was hers and be out before any could arrive.

But it wouldn't hurt to take the opportunity to test her skills.

So she waited until he reached the door where the first dwarf had met his end and was still glued to the one side of the entrance, saw him reach for the other side of the door for stability, and struck.

A blast of ice shot towards him, but hit off-centre. She'd wanted this one to mirror the other, two little icebergs with a frozen dwarf inside on each door, but in this case she'd only frozen the youngster's arm to the door. A pity – she was embarrassed to have missed such an easy target.

Although, it was amusing to watch the dwarf struggle trying to pull his arm free from it.

She giggled.

_Enough of this,_ she told herself. _You must reclaim what is yours._

With a deep breath, she turned back to where the pull of her heart had guided her.

"Arun!" the dwarf who'd thrown his hammer at her bellowed, now that all his comrades had gone quiet. "Stur! Druk!"

Floating past him slowly, she smirked. Their eyes met.

"What… what are you?" the dwarf growled at her. "What have you done to my companions!?"

Her grin widened, and she said nothing, turning her head from his struggles and towards her own.

_My love. My forever._

"Thirs!" cried the redhead, the only other still conscious. "Thirs, I can't move!"

"Gimli!?" yelled the half frozen dwarf. "Gimli, what of the others!?"

She tuned out of their desperate, pitiful cries.

She was so close.

The cold swept forth with her excitement, the gold around her sparkling with frost, then hidden beneath the ice, and then…

There is was.

_My own. My love._

The chest was open, the jewels sparkling ice-white within them.

Her love lay on the very top, calling to her.

She almost feared to touch it after so long, worried that like a dream it would disappeared even as the tips of her fingers found its surface.

But her hand moved closer, beyond her will to hold it back.

And closed around the shining necklace.

"Oh, my beautiful darling," she crooned, holding the light to her breast.

The dwarves' cries, increasing in volume as the pain from their limbs being frozen began to set in, seemed yet quieter and quieter as the world consolidated down to her, and the one that had been denied to her.

"Mine, Thranduil," she whispered. " _Mine_."

This one need satisfied, her need for revenge flared up like a blizzard ever stronger. What was hers was in her hands again.

Now to take what was _his_.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Bathed in the firelight of the royal chambers, the King under the Mountain dozed – rousing every quarter-hour or so to protest that he was not asleep, before drifting off again while his nephews sniggered, and his sister paused in her work to shake her head.

The king's consort raised his eyebrows.

"I think that's enough now, boys," he reprimanded them gently. "It's been a long day, and Bofur says there's more than one vein down there they've yet to look into. Now, are you two going to go back to your rooms like respectable dwarf-lads, or are you spending the night on the town trying to corrupt poor Gimli again?"

The princes of Erebor drew back with great, fake gestures of offence.

"I don't believe it, Fili," said the younger. "Mr. Boggins forgets again that he is younger than we are!"

"Not relatively," said the Consort, for the umpteenth time.

"And to suggest we would 'corrupt' dear Gimli," sighed the elder prince; softer, but no less jovial than his brother. "Gloin would have our heads for such a thing – princes or no!"

"Aye," Kili agreed. "All we're trying to do is see that he is not remiss in applying himself to the great dwarrow tradition of getting roaring drunk at the tavern and singing rude songs about elves. Gloin would heartily approve!"

"Speaking of elves…" Fili said, giving his brother a pointed glance.

Kili pouted. "Not yet," he said. "But one day soon I will convince Tauriel to get us one of the elf-king's bottles of the special stuff. She still says a single sip would knock us out."

He rolled his eyes, and Fili joined him in pouting. Bilbo, shook his head with fond exasperation, but with this they had attracted their mother's attention too.

"Excuse me?" Dis interrupted, glancing up from the design she'd been crossing out anyway within her notebook. "What's this about you smuggling in elvish drink – and slipping it to Gimli at that?"

"Uh… "

"I would say we were thinking of 'slipping' it to him, exactly… "

"You had better not," Dis said, with finality. "You are too friendly with that she-elf as it is. I do not like the idea of your two eating food or drinking drink she gives you."

Kili folded his arms. "Oh, come on, Mama – the elves fed us for months while we were their prisoners and we didn't suffer in the slightest for it."

"Months?"

"Well, it felt like months…"

Fili nodded. "I can confirm not one of us turned into anything nasty, despite what the old tales warn."

"Well, you couldn't really tell in Dwalin's case, could you?"

Both boys sniggered. Dis was undeterred.

"I will not have it!" she growled, more vehemently now. "None of this elvish nonsense and no more making fun of your kin either. Honestly – I don't know what your uncle was teaching you all the time you were with him. You were so sweet and obedient as lads."

She paused.

"Well, Fili was."

Bilbo and Fili both laughed at that, and though again Kili pretended offence, his face soon spilt into as wide a grin as any of theirs. The icing on the cake was Thorin stirring long enough to grumble, "Listen to your mother, boys," before returning to his sleep.

Giving up making his nephews-by-marriage respectable as a lost cause, Bilbo sighed and bounced his daughter a little on his knee.

"There, there, Roselin," he murmured. "Mind you don't grow up to be a rascal like your cousins."

Given her heritage on either side, it must be said he didn't hold out too much hope. A quarter Took and half a Durin would quite overwhelm the remaining Baggins fourth, he feared. He kissed her soft black curls and she pointed out at the offending princes.

"Irri!" she said.

Fili lit up with glee. "She said my name!"

Kili elbowed him. "She said _my_ name!"

And then before the argument could continue, from one moment of comfortable peace to the next of dreadful uncertainty, the thundering of footsteps on the stone outside reached the room and there was a crash of knocking on the door.

Thorin's eyes snapped open at once.

"My king!" a voice cried from the other side of the door. "My king, the treasury is under attack!"

Bilbo felt his heart seize up. He held Roselin a little tighter.

The room seemed to become darker in an instant.

Fili turned to Kili with, "Gimli's latest rotation was before the treasury!" and fear was in both their eyes, merriment melting away like a bubble bursting.

Thorin strode out of his chair and to the door to fling it open, nephews following close behind. Bilbo stood up with Roselin in his arms. Dis gripped one side of her chair.

"Attack?" Thorin asked of the panting dwarrow on the other side. "What's happened? Who is responsible?"

The messenger gave what was probably the worst answer he possibly could have.

"Elves, my king."

Bilbo's eyes shut against the top of his daughter's head.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

 


	2. Diplomacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Further updates will not be so quick; for though much is written, much has also yet to be written. But I wanted to start things off with a proper chapter as soon as possible. 
> 
> In this chapter, there is a meeting of three kings in which the two youngest people in the room try (and fail) to stop their elders from acting like children. Also, accusations of theft and murder abound. 
> 
> Notes: Maybe keep in mind three things here. 1. This is a Blind!Thranduil fic, though in this story elven sixth sense(s) make up for almost all disadvantages; but more on that as we progress. 2. Elves in this head-canon are also touch-empaths, they feel the emotions of those they are in direct contact with (my explanation for why they don't engage in physical contact with each other all that much). And 3. Thranduil is an Unreliable Narrator, and in the next chapter we'll be seeing Bilbo's POV.
> 
> Any other questions, feel free to ask. Enjoy.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

On the eve of the fifth winter since the blood of his people had stained the stones of Dale in their battle against Azog's armies, Thranduil found himself sitting once again among the towers of the slowly-recovering city; the now-King Bard slowly pacing the length of the room before him, glancing every now and then at the door with frustrated eyes.

"It must be irritating for one such as yourself," Thranduil said to him, casual as he could be, "to be reduced to a go-between by Thorin; as though you were some client-king of his."

He took a long sip of the wine provided, before resting it languidly on the table beside him.

Bard met his eyes briefly, before he shook his head with yet more frustration. He wore no crown, nor had he since his coronation, and his clothes were little more than a cleaner and more finely-tailored version of what he'd worn the day they'd rode out together to the Lonely Mountain. Apart from that it seemed that even the shortest-lived of races did not change much in as small a time as had passed since that day.

"I don't think 'one such as myself' much different than the man who scraped a living steering barges his entire life," Bard told him with a snort.

"Yes, but whatever that man's status I imagine he had self-respect enough to want one ally to have the wherewithal to speak to another ally of his own accord."

"Oh, the King Under the Mountain is well-prepared to speak to you," Bard laughed. "Or yell at, at any rate. Possibly with blades instead of words."

Thranduil rolled his eyes but beneath the gesture there was a glimmer of actual disturbance in his heart. Thorin, whatever else he was or had been, was at least not completely insane the last time he'd seen him, and him suddenly being so incensed with Thranduil that Bard feared physical violence was on the table made no sense.

They had little in the way of direct contact, after all – except through his 'ambassador'.

"Has Tauriel done something I should know about?" he asked the human.

Bard shook his head. "I don't think so, else you'd have known about it already. My own messenger could not confirm exactly what the problem was, only that in amongst the insults directed at your person was included some mention of murder."

Murder?

He could tell from Bard's tone of voice, which was hesitant and troubled, that he did not believe such a thing had happened, or at least not at Thranduil's hand. So there was at least one mortal blessed with the stirrings of intelligence in the region.

Still, it was not unreasonable to assume that the dwarf meant the accusation in an indirect manner, such as 'he was a murderer for letting dwarves die when he could have saved them, when the dragon came' – if not that specific reason, since he'd had five years to suddenly lose his mind over that again.

If, perhaps, some accident had occurred that could by any ridiculously convoluted argument be linked back to him, Thranduil would not have been surprised that Thorin would do just that; in which case he had been compelled to travel all the way to Dale just to listen to the King under the Mountain rant and rave about nothing until his anger burned itself out.

If so, then Thranduil would be…

… annoyed.

There was a knock at the door.

"Enter," Bard called.

The messenger who'd arrived stepped through the threshold onto a thin layer of stone-dust from the recent refurbishments to the room, traversing the length of the black-marble high table to his king's side.

"My liege, King Thorin and his people have arrived."

Bard winced, meeting Thranduil's eyes as the elf-king smirked in anticipation of this volatile meeting. After all, whatever else had occurred it was always amusing to see dwarves having their little tantrums.

"Who has he brought?" Bard asked.

"His consort, my liege, Bilbo Baggins – and one of his nephews, along with Captain Dwalin, Lord Balin, three others I think were part of his Company and a guard of six warriors."

Thranduil almost laughed as he drank from his goblet. _A host of fourteen for old time's sake?_ , he wondered. Still, at least the halfling was with him, he was sensible enough – excepting his choice of life-partner. Thranduil himself had brought a support of six, which he judged more than sufficient to contend with the dwarf's little gang.

 _Fourteen companions_ … he mused.

Though they did not sound so 'little', with their great thundering footsteps clattering up the stairs beyond the corridor outside. When the messenger with his dull, mortal ears finally heard these too he frowned, as though he'd expected the dwarves to wait where he'd left them while their presence was announced. More fool him.

Bard groaned towards the heavens, "Damn it all!" and the messenger ducked into the corner in fright when the door burst open with an almighty CRASH.

Feeling the weight of his sword against his hip, beneath his autumn cloak, Thranduil could say truthfully that his lack of concern was not affected, and after a lazy gesture to his own followers to stay their hands he moved only to take more wine, to make sure Thorin knew well and good what he thought of his theatrics.

A beat passed as the door swung back and CRACKed against the wall, whereupon Thorin Oakenshield stormed into the room bellowing –

"THRANDUIL!"

Thorin had come crownless also, his beard much longer than it had been when last Thranduil had seen him three years previously, in a long, thick plait that hung from chin to chest and two smaller tails clasped in precious metal on either side. His own sword was not drawn, at least, but Thranduil did not need to see the expression on the dwarf's face to know he was an inch away from unleashing it, and at any rate the bare-headed attack-dog Thorin kept by his side had an axe openly slung over his shoulder.

The four who came in after him were also known to Thranduil, if not by name – save for Thorin's chief advisor Balin, son of Fundin – who must have endowed his eldest with all the family's civility and left none for the younger son. The other three were indeed also of the notorious Company; the scribe, the healer – which did not bode auspiciously – and the healer's brother, which boded even less so because he too had his axe at the ready and had to be held back from rushing towards Thranduil by the younger of Thorin's nephews who followed behind.

"Thorin – wait! Just wait!"

And there was the halfling, fighting a losing battle.

"Explain yourself, Elf!" roared the dwarf-king.

"Thorin, please!"

Thranduil smirked, and leant back in his chair. He was easily far away enough that he could be moved to action before any dwarf reached him should any have so chosen. Thus, he saw no reason not to answer –

"If you insist, Oakenshield. How small should my words be that I can be sure your whole company understands them?"

To his left, he noticed Bard drop his head into his hands.

"Oh, perfect… " muttered Bilbo, just before –

"You have assaulted my kin," Thorin growled; a dreadful voice with yet more fury than he'd shown Thranduil even in the moments before he'd been thrown into his dungeons. "Stolen from my treasury and murdered three of my people – and you will answer for it!"

Well. That didn't sound like he was being blamed for an _accident_.

"Thorin, we don't know for sure that it was him – "

"We know it!" yelled Thorin. "There is no doubt of it in my mind whatsoever!"

"Aye," the red-bearded dwarf chimed in, his own rage only quieter from the sound of it because it was so much _greater_ he risked his head exploding if he let the full force loose. "Nor in mine. There's no more to be said about it; I'll carve his eyes out here and now!"

The dwarf prince Kili tightened his grip around the elder, but Thranduil felt from him as much rage directed his way as was felt by any of them.

It was the Halfling who stepped in, exclaiming, "Gloin!" and then, "Gloin, I know this is hard for you, but think how many more innocent lives are at risk if you just jump in there and – "

"And if it was Roselin, lying there, in that bed!" spat 'Gloin'. "Her arm…" he trailed off with a choking noise that sounded uncomfortably like a sob, and the weight of such a remark gave Thranduil a moment to parse through what he'd just heard.

That he'd assaulted, murdered and stolen from dwarves recently was news to him. And having little reason to believe _these_ dwarves (who he was sorry to say he knew well enough) would suddenly decide to make this litany of crimes up, it only took him a second's thought to suspect himself framed for whatever had happened by a third party; an obvious target for such, and accordingly condemned by the dwarves' obtuseness. But that was only to be expected.

At any rate, someone meant him harm too, as collateral or otherwise, and he supposed the trip was worth it after all to find that out.

Dwarves though these may have been, he did not consider it a small feat to break into their treasury and slaughter their guards – not since many years ago he'd received report of how 'easy' such an operation would be by those he'd had investigate the matter, and subsequently decided against it.

Right now though, he was more preoccupied by the increasing likelihood that this meeting here would end in bloodshed if he could not convince the dwarves of his innocence, or at the very least of the lack of certainty in his guilt. That the red-headed member of Thorin's company appeared to have a child involved, (his appeal to the Halfling's feelings towards his own child with Oakenshield, Princess Roselin, making that plain enough), made the chances seem slim.

All very good reasons to try to work with the dwarves, and why he definitely shouldn't have said,

"Do listen to Master Baggins, _Gloin_. As he said, your life is at risk if you should 'just jump in there'."

He felt the dwarves' faces tense with yet more rage, while the halfling rubbed his head.

"Great," he muttered. "Yes, I knew I could count on you to help ease the tension, your majesty, thanks ever so much."

Thranduil chuckled. "If your companions have come here to spout nonsense at me then they can hardly be surprised that I respond with my own mirth."

"Well, I hope you enjoyed your little joke, elf," snarled Dwalin, son of Fundin. "Because it's the last one you'll ever make at the expense of our people – "

"Enough!"

Bard's voice rang out loud and clear throughout the room and likely those surrounding it as well. With one hand on his hip he stalked towards the dwarves, between them and Thranduil, and shot the elf-king a glare before he said his piece.

"Both of you. You are under my roof, in my city; there will be no blood spilt within these walls except that which the spiller is willing to shed themselves at my hand when their deed is done!"

The anger of the dwarves did not abate at this, nor was Thranduil much moved – but Bilbo breathed a sigh of relief to have one ally in the room, and for the moment there was no further move to murder. Once that moment gave way to another, which also passed without loss of life, Bard took a deep breath and addressed Thorin.

"Your words have revealed a little of what has happened already," he said. "Now speak the whole of it, and why you believe King Thranduil to be at fault."

His request fell upon one too busy trembling with repressed anger so vicious Thranduil was surprised that the dwarf-king's teeth didn't break against each other ere he answered, but Balin son of Fundin at least deigned to respond.

"It is as the King has said: there was an assault on the treasury," he told them. "Of the seven who guarded the entrance three were slain – "

"By _elf_ magic," interjected Gloin, in a hiss.

" – and the other four all wounded, two gravely so."

Thranduil's attention flickered momentarily to Gloin, who winced at mention of the 'two' that must have included his own get.

"I do not disbelieve you," Thranduil told him, re-crossing his legs the other way from what they had been. "But tell me, what makes you think I'm answerable to this matter? My _elf magicians_ are all quite occupied with other tasks presently."

"You bastard – " spat Thorin.

But his consort interrupted. "The reason your name has come up, your majesty," he said quickly and emphatically, "is because of what was taken. The killer was very selective in their target: only one item did he make off with."

With a start, and his outlook on the situation entirely re-ordered in that start, Thranduil realised what the halfling meant before he said the words, and felt a dark shadow fold itself over his heart.

"The White Gems," Bilbo confirmed, a moment later.

And at their mention, the noise that filled the room was just as White to Thranduil.

The gems. Of course. What else would it have been? All the poisonous memories he kept of that item fluttered at the inside of his skull like bats.

Stolen. The jewels, stolen?

 _His_ white gems?

_His._

And by one who was willing to kill to do so.

An impossible name and the image of a beautiful visage carved in ice were at the forefront of his mind from one painful heartbeat to the next, though he knew it was impossible.

Then there was a pain in his fingertips from how he dug them into the arms of the stone chair; so harsh and dead and unmalleable beneath them that he suddenly felt a longing for his trees he hadn't not felt so fiercely since he'd watched his most precious leaf blow away from him at long last, five years ago now, five years and…

And…

It could not be _her_. He ordered himself to believe it could not be her.

But if there was even the slightest chance it was then he prayed to Elbereth that Legolas had flown far enough that distance would keep him safe.

"Thranduil?"

Bard had been asking his name for some time now while he'd sat frozen, ( _and that was what he should have asked them, asked them 'were they frozen?_ ') else his voice would not have had half as much hesitancy as it did. Before him, Thorin scoffed at his reaction, no doubt believing it to be affected, but Thranduil did not care so much. He only thought with growing desperation as to who – other than _her_ – would have and could have had the wherewithal to do this deed.

He even grasped for those slivers of thought he'd previously dismissed, for reasons the dwarves might have made this all up to taunt him, or forever keep what was his and laugh at him over it, perhaps gain concessions from him too and laugh harder – but no, he would not let them get away –

"Was it only the necklace that was taken? Or the entire chest of the gemstones?"

From his side, Celedrion asked the questions Thranduil should have for him.

Of course. He'd forgotten he'd brought Celedrion with him, and Celedrion was one of the few who knew…

Only, if he thought for an instant he would tell _them_ …

The idea burst with fury in his chest and he shot his cousin's husband an angry glare for speaking out of turn. Celedrion was not cowed, however; met his eyes with both urgency and unasked for regret, and waited for the dwarves' reply.

Thorin Oakenshield may have still had no doubts about him, the same for the two axe-wielding annoyances, but the others Thranduil noticed seemed more hesitant, as though they at least entertained being convinced by his reaction.

"Just the necklace," said Balin, frowning at this newcomer to the discussion. "One would presume to make a speedy escape, but we counted what was left in the chest and around it, and not a single other stone had been taken, nor a single coin from the rest of that section."

"Around the chest?" asked Celedrion. "Some of the gems had fallen out?"

"Celedrion," Thranduil growled warningly.

He did not know why the other had asked that, Celedrion had his hunches and they normally proved useful if not always right, but those were not to be revealed to dwarves, and he should have known better.

"The necklace had been removed in haste," Balin confirmed.

With alarm, Thranduil recognised the small spark of an understanding kindled between those two. This was when enough finally seemed enough, and he stood up hastily.

"We're leaving," he announced.

Celedrion shot him a look.

"Sire…"

Thranduil met his eyes sharply. "We are leaving now."

Thorin laughed, a harsh and humourless sound.

"Over my dead body, elf."

In lieu of making the obvious retort to that, Thranduil only forced himself to grin, and did not find it as hard to as he should have.

That moment saw a darker chord in the tension in the room. Both Bard and Bilbo drew themselves up in recognition of it, and Thranduil felt Celedrion exchange a glance with his official bodyguard, Findros.

"All right, let's talk about this rationally, your majesties," Bilbo said cautiously. "Thranduil, you can understand why you've been linked to this, if you know anything about who might have committed the murders, please. Just… please just tell us so we can move past this!"

Much as the halfling amused Thranduil with his doomed attempts to calm the fires of a dwarf's rage, and indeed, in addressing him so casually when so few of his own people would have done such a thing, the situation as he feared it was allowed him no room to linger here and give _reassurances_ to Thorin Oakenshield.

He could think what he liked and Thranduil saw no reason to be overly concerned.

"Get out of my way, _dwarf_. I understand that I've been linked to this by the one link that still chained me to your dingy little mountain, and since that has now been severed by the incompetence of your guards allowing my property to be stolen, I see no reason to suffer the sight of your pathetic self ever again."

Then, before any of the dwarves' heads could explode with rage – which he deemed had been at its height at the insult to the mountain, rather than the king, for what that was worth – his traitorous kinsman blurted out –

"You spoke of elf magic, King Under the Mountain – "

"Celedrion!"

" – tell me, did you find your people frozen within ice?"

It was most ungainly for a king to lose his temper to the point of instigating violence; a king or any elf for that matter.

But Celedrion of all elves should have known better than to ask that question, since the response in the dwarves' body language suggested the answer was 'yes', and with that added distress Thranduil spun on his heel, went back to Celedrion – his cloak flying out behind him – and slapped him swiftly across the face.

He regretted it immediately. The brief pain in his kinsman's eyes as the blow connected, the flash of shared impact that swept through both of them, the paper thin cut from the corner of a ring welling up with red to show him he had drawn the blood of one of his own people, however little of it. The way the other five he'd brought had startled and how he felt them looking to each other now worriedly, faltering in the echo of the hit; that he'd shamed himself in front of allies, and worse – in front of dwarves. Now behind him, he felt the halfling flinch, and imagined his wide-eyed stare.

The worst thing was probably how after a moment of being stunned Celedrion only sighed briefly, as though he was not at all surprised his king would do such a thing.

However, the mention of the ice confirmed it, and the pain that that ice had entrapped his heart in would not allow apologies to leave Thranduil's lips. Instead –

"Do you disobey me, cousin?" he spat, in Sindarin.

Celedrion took a deep breath, responding in the same tongue.

"I would not, my king. But if it is _her_ then the prince may be in danger. As may we all."

That was true. But what would telling dwarves of the bitter history of the matter accomplish?

"Your prince is far away," he said, all at once a distance in his voice. "Too far for her to find him. We are leaving, and you will say nothing more to the dwarves."

Fate was not and never had been so kind to Thranduil as to see that become the end of the matter, for no sooner had he finished his sentence than the halfling exclaimed.

"Yes!"

The glare Thranduil gave Thorin's consort was venomous, but Bilbo persevered after a single gulp and continued.

"Yes – that is – one was found encased entirely; one frozen through as though he had been and one stabbed through with a spear of ice. Of those who survived, two more had been partially encased – one has lost one leg already and may yet lose the second, the other's arm may be taken in the same way."

Thranduil didn't need to hear any of this. Impossible though it may have been there was no more doubt in his mind: it was her, and he remembered well enough her methods.

He needed to get back to his kingdom before she did.

"You do know who did this then?" Bilbo pressed. He took a step forward, though Balin reached out to hold him back, touching his sleeve gently. "King Thranduil?"

It occurred to him he'd been but a prince himself the last time he'd had the misfortune of seeing her. Apart from that his thoughts were out of joint. He needed to leave, but there was so much else and likely little time to wait for his emotions to calm himself enough to…

"I have nothing more to say to dwarves of this matter," he replied.

"Bastard," spat Dwalin. The hands of the one called Gloin tightened on his axe; Thranduil sensed enough force he was surprised the handle didn't splinter.

And yet again, Bilbo intervened.

"And what about to me?" he asked, drawing himself up as if to try to give himself confidence. "You named me elf-friend after the Battle of Five Armies, your majesty. Could you not, as a friend, I mean – could you not say anything more so I can tell the families of the slain what happened?"

For what felt like a long time, Thranduil continued to fail in his attempt to push past the swell of feeling all this had stirred up in him.

Then, really pushing his luck by this point, Celedrion inched a little closer to him.

"Cousin," he said gently, in Sindarin. "Would it do such harm to let the dwarf-king know even a little more?"

Thranduil could say nothing, for he could think of no way it would do harm except that it was personal, and the dwarves had no right to know anything of him that he did not wish them to, especially when even Legolas was in the dark about certain elements.

Celedrion, being Celedrion, took this silence as permission, and switched back to Westron to reply:

"The culprit you seek is an ice-witch from the far north who was known to us as 'Varalinde'. She was sealed under enchantment several thousand years ago by means I do not think any living now could say, except that clearly they were insufficient and Varalinde has escaped."

In Thranduil's darkest memories, Elodwë's desperate cries of _"Why, Varalinde? Why!?"_ still rang as clear as any of the war-horns on the winds of other nightmares.

"The whole history of the witch and our king's family is long and complicated, but suffice it to say she believes the White Gems and that necklace in particular to be hers by right."

He paused. Then, to clarify:

"They are not."

No, they were not. They were Thranduil's, and his people's, and they had been promised to him. If it took ten thousand centuries he would have them back, if he had to crawl through Morgoth's own furnaces to retrieve them.

The silence that followed was not long. Thorin's anger had not abated, but now it was laced with confusion when he asked,

"An ice-witch? An elven ice-witch, or some fell creature apart from the free races of Middle Earth?"

 _As if those were the only two choices_ , Thranduil could have sneered. Celedrion glanced at him as if for permission to speak further, but when Thranduil failed to move a muscle he went ahead anyway.

"I believe she was a _peredhel_ ; a half-elf with an elven mother and human father. But she has chosen the path of an immortal and more than that she has great magical ability and can extend the lives of other mortals whom she has taken as her servants. In that respect there is little, now, that accords her kinship with the other races of Middle Earth."

Much to Thranduil's surprise the larger part of the dwarves were by this point beginning to look as though they were prepared to accept Celedrion's words – should he have provided some kind of proof.

The one called Gloin, unsurprisingly, was not one of those.

"We're wasting time," he hissed.

"Peace, Gloin," said Thorin of all people, still angry but little enough that the surprise snapped Thranduil out of what had rapidly been becoming a trance. "For now at least – until we can expose his lies. Tell me, elf – "

"Celedrion," said Celedrion, as though the dwarf had called him 'elf' simply because he did not know his name and not as an insult. "Son of Celedrorhos of Doriath,"

A muscle in Thorin's face twitched, likely expecting that to be a statement of enmity from Celedrion in regards to the fall of Doriath and the dwarves' part in it, rather than the simple introduction that was – knowing Celedrion – what had been meant. Celedrion was not Thranduil, after all, and Celedrorhos and his spouse had been slain in the second sack of Doriath, not the first.

" – Celedrion," Thorin gritted out. "Where may we find this witch, that we might exact vengeance for our kin?"

An image of Thorin Oakenshield frozen in one of his oh-so-majestic battle-charges forever appeared in Thranduil's mind, and he laughed.

"What could that matter to you?" he asked, amusedly. "You could not hope to overpower her. You could not even hope to get near her with the spells she has protecting her palace, unless you yourself had a skilled magician with you." A less than comforting thought occurred. "Don't tell me Mithrandir is visiting?"

"Where the wizard goes is no concern of ours," spat Thorin. "Tell us where this witch's palace is or have your tale dismissed as a pack of lies!"

"I care not whether you accept or reject the tale, Oakenshield. Nor if you should end up in a block of everlasting ice and displayed at the gates of your mountain as a visitor's attraction – "

Oh, how the dwarves bristled at that. Thranduil gave them the chance to yell at him some more as he found his own gaze sneaking back to the Halfling, though none took that chance, and his own expression softened.

"However, I confess I'd find it disagreeable for one that I myself named elf-friend to potentially be brought to harm through connection to me – and to a stupid husband."

On his left Bard rolled his eyes dramatically. Thorin surprisingly accepted Thranduil's reason without bellowing at the insult.

"So I will not tell you where Varalinde dwells," he concluded. "Eventually she will come to me and then I will deal with her at last." He felt Celedrion's eyes turn on him sharply. "I'll be sure to let you know when it has come to pass. Or more likely Celedrion will – "

"And how long will you be sitting on your arse waiting for that to happen?!" Thorin yelled, back to being the dwarf Thranduil knew and loved to hate. "Ten years? Twenty? 'A hundred years is but the blink of an eye to an elf', a certain elf once told me – and I do not accept it!"

Thranduil sneered.

"Well in that case, King under the Mountain, you can always gather your Company of Fools together and go wandering about the northern wastelands, hoping to find her. I can't say if that will take more or less time than you spent wandering around looking for the door to your own mountain, but then if you won't accept wisdom… "

Thorin's temper had finally reached its end by this point, and his hand flew to the hilt of his sword. In an instant, Thranduil's own people had their own weapons at the ready – save for Celedrion, who took a step closer to his king as Bilbo Baggins did to his, hands on the dwarf's arm.

Dwalin and Gloin still had their own weapons at the ready, as did the dwarf guards, but the other members of the Company had not had the chance and being surrounded, even by a smaller number than their own, they dared not make further move towards arming themselves, though Balin and Kili both moved to fill the gaps that would have left Thorin vulnerable to arrows.

Thranduil could feel Bard raging helplessly to the side.

"Thorin," said Bilbo, worriedly. "Remember what Bard said, you can't do this here – "

"Don't," Thorin snapped back, "tell me what to do!"

Bilbo held up his hands. "All right, all right," he said hastily, even as Thorin seemed at once regretful of his outburst, "But please, my love, just think it over – "

"There is nothing for him to think over!" Bard interrupted, his frustration boiling over. "Do you not think I meant what I said? He who spills the blood of an ally in this room will not be leaving it!"

" _He_ is no ally of mine," Thorin insisted, glaring with fire enough that Thranduil almost felt it through his own ice.

Bard was unimpressed though – he'd killed a dragon after all.

"I did not say it must be _your_ ally, King under the Mountain."

There was a beat of awkward silence – all involved trying to think what to say to move things along. Thranduil knew what he would say, only the tension in the room was such that by now even he was wary, for if Oakenshield thought little enough of the humans to set a dragon upon them, respecting Bard's law here and now was questionable.

Eventually, and with less strength in his voice than Thranduil would have expected from him, Celedrion appealed with "My king…"

And Thranduil deemed that it released enough tension for him to continue.

"If Varalinde has awoken then the ice-sky will soon be upon the wood," he said – mostly to Celedrion, whose eyes widened even though he should have realised that would be the case. Indeed, Thranduil felt much uneasiness from all his people at that pronouncement. "We must prepare."

Reluctantly, Celedrion nodded, and Thranduil took that as his cue to sweep his cloak behind him and make for the exit.

"Wait, ice-sky?" said Bilbo. "What does that mean?"

Thranduil ignored him.

"Thranduil, don't you dare turn your back on me a second time!" Thorin raged, but Thranduil ignored him too, summoning his people to his side with a gesture.

Only Celedrion hesitated, and with a desperate glance at Thranduil he hung back, bowed to Thorin – Thranduil felt himself twitch with annoyance – and said,

"My deepest condolences for your losses, your majesty – we will send you a healer who has seen this magic before to help your people – "

Oh they would, would they?

" – and if you do still doubt then please, send word to Lord Elrond of Rivendell, with whom I believe you are on better terms – he will confirm what we have told you."

"Wait, Mr. Celedrion – "

"Your pardons, all."

Celedrion bowed again, and hurried after Thranduil and the rest, who by now were halfway down the corridor outside. Thranduil heard Bard yelling at Thorin to let him go, something about it being clear that Thranduil had been telling the truth – which Thranduil had to say even with everything else was a kind thing for the King of Dale to think, true or not. He didn't care enough to listen too closely though, not when he knew what was about to come.

Bard's men stood aside for them wordlessly when they reached the stairs – the echoes of the dwarves' yelling still making their way down the hall. But no one came after them. Findros glanced back at him.

"Should we send a messenger back to the realm to warn them, my king?" he asked.

Thranduil considered it.

"The first snow has already fallen – her spies will be everywhere and I'd rather not give them the chance to intercept the message. We will simply need to make as much haste as we can."

"My king, if she should bring down the ice-sky before we return… "

As though he hadn't already considered that. He shot Findros a warning look.

"Ilirieth will know what to do," he said, dismissively. "She and my uncle and aunt have endured the ice-sky before. They have more than enough store to see them through a winter; the power of the Winter Witch will not last into the spring."

He hoped.

"And may yet be weak besides," said Celedrion, as they passed onto a balcony path in the light of the white sun. "Whatever enchantment kept her there these past millennia, she must need time to recover her strength."

"Unless she's already had that time," Thranduil muttered.

Another set of guards parted to let them past onto a stone staircase. Celedrion batted impatiently at his straw-yellow hair as the wind moved it, and walked closer to him.

"What is in your thoughts?" he asked.

Thranduil snorted. "That the creature in question has been under that spell, dreaming her foul dreams since before the fall of Sauron, and the only thing that has changed recently in this region is that Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarves have returned to Erebor."

Celedrion blinked. "But surely that could have no effect?" he said. "The coming of Smaug in itself must have disturbed enough of the land that – "

"Varalinde may have waited five years for her chance to take vengeance on me, but I cannot see her waiting over a century. Nor would it have taken her that long to return to full power. Besides, our own intelligence has seen the dwarves venturing about those parts; probably surveying teams. Who knows what they might have disturbed that was keeping her in place?"

"Who indeed?" said Celedrion darkly.

Thranduil knew well what he meant, for the same thought had occurred to him even as he spoke the words.

That the fearful truth of the matter was they had no idea what might have been keeping Varalinde sealed.

"My king… your father, he never… ?"

"I only asked him once," Thranduil said, and did not say any more, for neither had Oropher when the question had been asked of him.

And he didn't like to think of why his father would not have told him such an important thing.

They walked in silence until they reached the stables – each booth too small for Atheon, who had waited for him outside, and untethered, watched from the outskirts of the pen by several very nervous-looking humans. He lifted up his huge head when he sensed his rider approach, and shadows glanced off his antlers.

At this point Thranduil's entourage hesitated as one, likely because of the small herd of mountain war-goats that had also surrounded Atheon, and far closer than the humans had – though Thranduil himself only raised an eyebrow and continued walking towards them.

Ironically it had seemed the dwarves' mounts had been grazing quite peacefully alongside his own steed before they'd returned to the scene. Thranduil supposed he should have been grateful none of Thorin's gang had taken an axe to Atheon out of spite the moment they'd arrived, especially so soon after he'd lost Atheon's father to the same city.

But the war-goats parted for him, if seemingly reluctant to do so. He flicked his own wrist at his people.

"No dawdling," he told them. "I intend to reach the outskirts of the forest by dawn."

They were vulnerable where they were here, after all. Varalinde could not penetrate their realm, not with the protections that had been lain against her, and that would stand a lot long than they already had. But the ice-sky would come again, and he could tell the winter would be colder this year.

It hung about the earth, waiting to sink into his damaged skin and bite it until warmth or sheer force of will drove it away. The ice-sky would come, and that meant it would likely have to be the latter.

The important thing was that Legolas was far away, and out of danger.

As long as he stayed away, Varalinde would not get the better of Thranduil this winter.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

 


	3. Suspicions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we see things from the dwarves' (and Bilbo's!) POV, and a few things are elaborated on. Keep an eye out for teeny little Game of Thrones shoutouts within.
> 
> ...
> 
> ... That's pretty much all I had to say. Enjoy.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Thorin struck the wall with his fist on their way out of Bard's palace. Bilbo was honestly surprised the stone didn't crack beneath his rage.

"I do not accept for a moment that that is all there is to this story!" he growled, facing the rest of them with eyes Bilbo had not seen on his husband since the Battle of Five armies had been won.

He took a deep breath to calm the dread that this whole situation had stirred within him. Gimli would be all right, he told himself. Gimli would be all right and Thranduil was telling the truth – Thranduil's advisor, rather – and there would be no conflict with the elves and hopefully Thranduil would deal with the culprit and no further danger would befall the Lonely Mountain.

So he told himself, yet the dread remained.

"No, nor do I," said Balin, wearily. "But do you accept that what story he _has_ given us is at least true? That's the crux of the matter here."

On the lawn that was ringed by Bard's stables the war-goats lifted head and horns and bleated at the return of their riders. Thranduil's great elk was absent now, probably halfway back to Mirkwood along with the other elves' horses, but at least the animals had seemed to have had no quarrel, even if the same could not be said of their masters.

There was no pause in Thorin's step as he approached Greyjoy – named by Bilbo, as the dwarves did not bestow names upon their mounts as a rule – and swung himself into his saddle. Yet his words were delayed until he'd thought them through enough.

"What is in your mind then?" he asked Balin eventually. "I for one would still not put robbing our treasury and slaying our kin past Thranduil, yet my heart tells me he would not go about it in this way."

Balin approached his own mount, Greymane, as Bilbo hurried to the booths to fetch his pony – more accustomed to riding though he may have been five years since leaving the Shire, the far rowdier and ill-tempered goats were still a little beyond him. The others waited for Balin's opinion, Oin's arm around Gloin's shoulder.

The eldest of their company sighed.

"I don't know if Thranduil is what you fear he is," he said, then groaned a little as he mounted Greymane, unused to as much activity as they'd had today after literally years now of primarily handling Thorin's most important papers. "But when I ask myself whether or not he is responsible I hit the same obstacle time and again."

"Which is?" asked Dwalin.

"Why now?" Balin pointed out. "Five years may be nothing to an elf, but it is still five years, and though anger at being denied what he deems his property yet again after the battle was over – "

"Bard gave him more than his assistance was worth from what I paid him for our part in Laketown's ruin," Thorin snapped. "Thranduil rode against us simply to take advantage of our weakness, I was not going to give him the satisfaction of it, especially when he has offered no proof of his claim to those gems!"

" – as I was saying," Balin said, slowly, then gestured for the others to stop waiting around. "Though that anger might have pushed him to more underhanded means, it would have made far more sense to do so then and there, while we were at our weakest."

Thorin snorted. "The elf-king crowed over his great patience back when he held us prisoner," he said. "I assumed he could wait a little longer."

Bilbo sighed, throwing Thorin a look which his husband ignored. Though more important concerns had been foremost in his mind following the battle for Erebor, such as whether or not the one he considered his King would live through his wounds, the issue with the gems had eventually been returned to prior to this. Thranduil had made a visit to their kingdom in the intervening years, and while he had not mentioned the White Gems then, Bilbo had brought it up with Thorin at that time.

He had done so because he honestly could not, and still did not, understand why Thorin held onto those gems so undeterred, except out of resentment for Thranduil and all he had done and not done over the years. With the vast quantities of other diamonds in the treasury, it seemed like such a small thing to part with that single chest – especially in light of the joy that had preceded Thranduil's visit: the birth of Roselin, Bilbo and Thorin's daughter.

But then, Bilbo had also seen much of Thorin's pain, and while he still didn't think he could say how little or how much Thranduil was to blame for it, it also seemed a little enough punishment to have a single chest of jewels withheld that Thranduil should have been able to bear it.

Sending some kind of evil witch to steal them back for him – to kill others in doing so – was certainly indefensible. Even if there was something about those gems Bilbo didn't know about.

With that thought in his head, he cleared his throat, settling onto his charcoal pony, Nightshade.

"Does anyone know the original story behind those gems?" he asked. "How they first came to be in the treasury? Were they cut from the mountain?"

Balin shook his head, seeming regretful. "I think not, Lord Consort. Although it was a long time ago I have some memory of the occasion Thror first denied them to Thranduil; sending him a message to say they had been found, then upon his arrival saying he had only written to say they had been found – not that he was giving them to him."

His head-shake became more disapproving, though he didn't actually say anything against the former king – perhaps because he saw Thorin flinch as clearly as Bilbo did. He continued –

"And although it was not a matter I was involved with I heard Thror say, when asked by Thrain if any original contract had been located, that he would not give away his treasure either way." Balin sighed, and his voice was brighter when he spoke again. "But, indeed, no such document has been found, though we searched high and low for it following our reclamation of the Mountain."

"What did I tell you?" Thorin said gruffly, but before any further tirade against Thranduil could commence a hurried cough was heard from Ori, and all turned towards him.

"Um – begging your pardon Mr. Balin, but that's not – strictly speaking – exactly true… "

Bilbo felt rather sorry for Ori, what with how the looks on the faces of so many of the Company turned so intense just then. Balin blinked and frowned curiously at the younger dwarf.

"Don't tell me you've found a contract regarding the work meant to be done on the gems, Master Ori!" he exclaimed. "That was something some of our most experienced archivists couldn't manage!"

Ori looked down at the reigns of his pony hastily (Dori was not yet comfortable with allowing his brother to ride the war-goats at leisure), cheeks reddening.

"Oh – um – well, the thing is it wasn't a contract, strictly speaking, that I found – and more than that it wasn't from Thranduil, but from his father, King Oropher."

"Oropher?" Balin repeated, blinking again. "He's been dead for almost three thousand years though! The gems cannot possibly have been in the mountain all that time!"

Possibly for Bilbo's benefit, Kili added, "The kingdom didn't even exist back then. Not really," though Bilbo had known at least that much by now.

Clearing his throat for the second time, Ori looked around as though for an escape from the fierce glares of Thorin, Dwalin and Gloin before he straightened up and began to tell his story, to which Bilbo listened with fascination.

"Er, the thing is," he began, "I'm not sure exactly when the family of the original whitesmith who worked on the gems came to the mountain or how long they've been with us – a single letter in the archive is all we have; from Oropher directly to the craftsman – although a 'Celeborn of Doriath' may know something of it if he's still around – "

"He is," said Thorin shortly.

" – because the letter says he recommended the smith to Oropher in the years leading up to the end of the Second Age." Ori glanced away again. "I'm guessing both the smith and Oropher died before the commission was complete, and the smith's descendants may have used the gems to curry favour by presenting them to the royal line or something like that – or they could have simply been forgotten about and if the smith's line died out, the jewels… " he trailed off.

"But they definitely did come from Thranduil – or Thranduil's father, at any rate?" Bilbo asked.

Thorin clicked his tongue in annoyance when Ori nodded, but nevertheless seemed to accept it, or at least did not say anything about it.

"The commission itself though – that was the strange part," Ori went on. "Looking at the gems we have, or had, rather – you'd think most of them were never worked into anything, just loose in the chest. Only, that's not how they arrived at all. The letter talks about the transfer of a large assortment of items; necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, daggers, even gowns and dresses with the gems sewn in. Oropher wanted the gems _removed_ from all these things and set aside – in fact he wanted each gem in a separate box with a clear indication of exactly what the position it had occupied in the hoard had been."

"Elves could have done that themselves, surely?" Kili pointed out.

Balin hummed. "Not these ones, my lad. If what Ori says is true then the smith must have got almost the entire way through the lot before he died; there were only a few items left in the chest. But those had been made by dwarrow, including the necklace that's now been absconded with, and that was using the ever-mine technique."

That obviously meant something to the dwarves, but Bilbo was lost.

"Ever-mine?" he wondered aloud.

Kili sucked in a breath through his teeth. "That's a fancy trick;" he told Bilbo, "normally used on the most precious of family heirlooms. Even then many wouldn't take the risk."

"What risk?"

"Ever-mine means that if anyone ever tries to take the jewels out of the necklace or dagger or whatever they've been put in – presumably to try and sell them on – they shatter into powder in an instant," said Thorin. "Thieves' Bane, they call it – I'm sure you can ask Master Nori about that later."

Ori frowned at this implied comment about his brother, but held back from making a reply. Dwalin spoke instead, though on another topic.

"That makes the whole thing suspicious if you ask me," he snarled. Bilbo flinched a little to hear the anger still lingering from their meeting with Thranduil. "So the gems came from Thranduil's family in the first place? Where did they get them from? If they'd been made with ever-mine that makes it sound like they were dwarrow heirlooms originally."

"Definitely made by dwarrow hands, though I can't say for sure it was _for_ them," said Balin. "Elves and Men have family heirlooms precious to them as well."

"Aye," said Gloin – the first Bilbo had heard him speak since they'd left Bard's palace, and just as darkly as before, though clearly his thoughts were not too dark to be bereft of reason – yet. "And why would the family they were made for want to unmake them?" he wondered. "The tree-demon's father took them from someone else, mark my words."

As he'd been dead for three thousand years, Bilbo found he could not make judgement as to whether or not Thranduil's father might have done such a thing. But if he had, the likely victim of that supposed theft seemed like it would be…

"This 'Varalinde' then?" he asked.

Oin huffed. "Well if it was then she might have bloody well asked us about it before murdering our kin to take them back," he said.

"What do you expect?" Thorin muttered. "Thranduil said she was an elf too."

Bilbo almost said _'half-elf'_ , but realised before he did that that would be more likely to set Thorin more against Men than reduce his animosity with elves – especially since Bard had been so insistent on him not attacking Thranduil within the walls of Dale. Besides that, Lord Elrond had the title 'half-elf' (though as Bilbo understood it that was not because he had one human and one elf parent, but rather that his ancestors had), yet having chosen his elven heritage – as Celedrion had said Varalinde had also – he was considered as elven as any.

And more than that, he'd not have thought Roselin reflected any more or less on hobbits just because she was half-dwarrow.

A strange feeling came over him then, as he thought of his daughter safe back in the mountain, under her aunt's care. A feeling that he wanted her in his sight, in his arms; not unusual when they were separated and yet so much stronger in that moment that he felt his chest constrict.

It was a silly feeling, he chastised himself. Thorin had been right to dismiss his idea to take the opportunity to show Roselin some sunshine – he'd have not wanted to expose her to all that shouting in the palace, weapons drawn, elves slapping their attendants – and had that ever been a shock!

Of course, Bilbo hadn't really understood the whole history behind what was going on, still didn't if his instinct was on the money, but even though he'd have reluctantly admitted Thranduil seemed like the type to bestow a slap or two on misbehaving courtiers, he had been under the impression that elves in general didn't do that sort of thing. Especially not against a relative, which Celedrion was to Thranduil of some sort unless Bilbo's admittedly meagre Sindarin was worse than he'd thought. Indeed, the elves present had also looked uncertain of it, apart from Celedrion himself.

Why was this matter so upsetting to Thranduil that it had spurred him to do such a thing for such an innocent comment? For Bilbo had seen it in the elf-king's eyes, and all about his body: the news of what had happened had upset him, and it was mostly for that reason he suspected Thranduil truly was innocent of the theft that had left three dwarrow dead and Gloin's poor son so gravely wounded.

_To think_ , he thought to himself, along lines he often did, _back in the Shire the closest they come to situations like this is Juniper Boffin accusing Hazel Stout of only winning Best Sunflower Garden three years running through stealing seeds from Juniper's own garden – and demanding a well-written note of apology as recompense_! 

The great Sunflower Garden debacle was still being spoken of every week in the market-place when Bilbo had left. How odd it was, he thought after that, that Roselin would likely never encounter such goings-on, though she was his daughter and bore a hobbit's name – if modified to seem more dwarrow-like.

Balin, meanwhile, spoke quickly to distract Thorin from lingering on his resentment of elves, although by opening a door that Bilbo feared may confirm Thorin's reasons for his dislike.

"Perhaps there is one thing we can put to bed now though, laddie. Tell me, Ori, that letter – did it mention anything about the terms of payment?"

There was the dragon's-hoard question.

For a long time Bilbo had honestly wished the truth lay in the elves' favour, for even as he thought Thranduil had been wrong do deny all assistance to the dwarves of Erebor following the desolation of Smaug in any case, if it transpired that Thror really had been the one to break faith first, he felt the relationship might be able to take its first step to being repaired.

If the elves really had tried to short-change the dwarves, and then allowed their refusal to be taken advantage of offend them so badly that they let a great many of them die when help could have been offered…

The dwarves would not forgive. And he doubted the elves would care enough to even try and apologise.

He had to take a deep breath, therefore, when Ori's face scrunched up and he tilted his head from side to side before admitting – "There was no mention of the terms of payment in the letter. But someone had put a note on it saying – " he cut himself off, likely realising he was about to say something in Khuzdul in front of Bilbo and having to think of the Common translation for it, which made Bilbo roll his eyes since most dwarves he knew were more than willing to spout off a few words now and then, " – ahem, saying 'sympathy-waiver' – "

"What!?"

" – which had been crossed out by a third hand with the note 'not applicable', and underlined several times – "

"As well it should be!" cried Dwalin. "A… a _sympathy-waiver_ , as you put it, is not intended for the sake of stripping necklaces for elf-lords!"

Bafflement as well as offence featured in Thorin's expression when he turned his head to Gloin.

"I have never heard of the term being applied outside the mason's and rune-carvers' guilds," he said. "Is it even legal for a jeweller to use it?"

Gloin's expression mirrored Thorin's. "I can't think that it would be," he said – and there was something almost like desperation in his tone that made Bilbo more desperate himself to learn what they were talking about – for how else could he be of any assistance? "Though I'll admit someone might have tried to use it to curry favour with the elves, and whoever came across the letter rightly overruled it."

"That might explain why the elves think they don't owe us anything though," said Balin. "If they were told initially that no payment was needed."

Bilbo was actually thankful to see Kili looking from side to side at those who were discussing the matter with about as much confusion as he was feeling, if only so that for once it could be someone else who said, "You've lost me."

Some of the older dwarves tutted and shook their heads, and Kili went red, though seeing this Balin quickly stated –

"Ah, that even five-years dead the havoc wrought by Smaug continues to remind itself. Our poor young ones ignorant of so many of the customs of our people..."

Thorin snorted. "I for one wouldn't hazard to guess whether it was the havoc wrought by Smaug or the inattentiveness of the young one at their lessons that is the cause of this gap in knowledge, but that's beside the point. A sympathy-waiver means that part or all of the fee for a commission is waived out of sympathy for the client; you'd only see it applied to a simple tomb and inscription for dwarves whose families were too poor to afford one themselves."

Before Bilbo could ask more, Balin elaborated –

"In our wandering days there was not enough coin for any to be entombed according to the customs we practiced before the dragon. All were buried in the same fashion, and the tomb-carvers and rune-cutters paid for their work out of tax."

He spoke with regret, yet Bilbo almost smiled with his affection for the dwarves, for he realised they could have simply burned their dead for free yet even in as worse-off condition as they'd been in in the Blue Mountains they had set aside funds for such things. At the same time, it spoke to him of just how upsetting the aftermath of their bid for Moria must have truly been, and he kept in mind to watch for signs of that terrible day resurfacing in Thorin's memories, as it sometimes did even now.

Meanwhile, Kili absorbed all this with a frown of his own. "Well, then, I don't see what the gems Thranduil's after would have had to do with that. I do know enough to know that to dispel the ever-mine technique from as many gems as I saw in that chest should have been a prince's ransom."

"But," Bilbo said – and cautiously, suspecting this might not be a welcome observation, "if the craftsman who actually did the work was willing to waive it…"

"We don't know that it was the craftsman's idea," said Thorin, in a tone that brokered no argument. "Whether he was pressured into applying a false discount or what have you. At any rate, the commission isn't finished until the last gems are removed from that necklace Thranduil's supposed ice-witch has stolen, and you can be sure we won't be waiving payment for _that_."

It was something Bilbo feared would not be settled out on the road back to the mountain, though he didn't know how they were going to arrange to meet with Thranduil again after that. There was little chance of Thorin reaching out, and for all he knew Thranduil might just decide he'd pick the matter up again in another five hundred years.

But you never knew, maybe there was something Bilbo could do to smooth things over – Thranduil did seem to like him well enough. Most of the time.

"Well, at least we have something in the letter that we can show him next time we see him to hopefully move us past the current stalemate," he said.

Oin huffed. "And into a completely different stalemate, knowing that one. If it turns out he didn't have anything to do with the theft he'll probably claim he's owed them anyway for the trouble."

And there Bilbo had hoped they'd moved on from the 'Thranduil stole the necklace and killed the three guards!' train of thought. He sighed.

"Come on, everyone – before all this we were starting to be on better terms with Thranduil. You even invited him to Roselin's birthday celebration," he pointed out to Thorin.

"Aye," said Thorin, and a little smirk came to his lips. "But all dwarves know what happens when their King holds a celebration for his daughter's birth and forgets to invite the local witch."

While the other dwarves sniggered to some degree or another – except for the still stony-faced Gloin – Bilbo rolled his eyes.

"Hey, the other elf said Varalinde and her household had been in an enchanted sleep," Kili observed. "Maybe that's what happened to her when _she_ threw a party and forgot to invite Thranduil!"

Thorin chuckled and Bilbo rubbed his eyebrows. Dwalin couldn't wait to one-up his king and prince, of course.

"I reckon she was Thranduil's mistress," he said. "Maybe he tried to steal back all the gifts he gave her when she realised what a terrible mistake she'd made."

"You may be right," said Thorin. "Can't think of any way to turn a lass into an ice-woman faster than spending a night in that one's bed."

Kili burst out laughing and Ori made a strange squeaking sound that Bilbo imagined would have had Dori's hands over his ears in an instant, had he been there. But Gloin's fists tightened on the reins of his goat and when he saw Oin look worriedly at his brother Bilbo intervened.

"We are talking about the woman who probably killed three people a few days ago," he reminded them, and all mirth vanished.

There was a good quarter-minute of silence. Then Balin said –

"Druk did say a single attacker, and a she-elf at that, and Gimli seemed to concur those moments he was lucid. Though Thranduil may be keeping some part of their history – badly-ended love-affair or whatever it may be – a secret from us, I must say I'm inclined to believe him at least so far as that this 'Varalinde' stole it, and not on his orders. As far as that goes her history with Thranduil isn't important."

"No," agreed Thorin. "She'll face the vengeance of our people for it."

"Rightly so," Balin said, nodding. "Which leaves us with the most important matter being how to find her, and how to fight her when we do – for her powers do seem formidable."

Dwalin dismissed this observation.

"If Thranduil has managed to survive her enmity I think the greatest dwarrow kingdom in the world can more than match her tricks."

Bilbo glanced around quickly, and with some anxiety, as he took in the confident agreement in the faces of the other dwarves. It wasn't that he _didn't_ think they could outmatch this Varalinde, for he believed in them too dearly to think that, but he'd seen Thranduil's power and he'd seen poor Yuli, son of Yudri, encased in a block of ice that had come from _nowhere_ – and he feared it would be a greater task to defeat her than his dwarves seemed to believe.

It was Thorin alone that he saw disquiet in in that moment. But the King under the Mountain voiced nothing of it, if indeed he felt it, and instead declared –

"That may be, but as Balin says we must find her first. I wonder if our surveyors in the north have seen any sign of – "

"Uncle, look!"

Kili's voice grabbed all their attentions, and the followed the direction his finger had been pointing straight ahead across the plain whose edges they had just come to as they'd reached the boundary of the city. Since the death of Smaug some green had begun to come back to the land, patchy even five years on but growing every spring. The harsher autumn this year had yellowed a few strips of it though, and across this patchwork of green, yellow and brown, a company of riders on war-goats approached.

This sight seized Bilbo's heart, for all were armed more heavily than befitted simple messengers; as those who rode to war, and at their head was one of high rank. Closer, the goats brought them, until Bilbo recognised the armour well enough to know another member of the company, who were now all awarded the right to bear a certain medallion (a raven on an oaken branch, though Kili had pressed for a barrel floating on a river) on their breastplate so all would know them by sight, was the leader of this group. The hobbit and several others looked to Gloin, fearing the worst, and the red-bearded dwarf began to tremble.

Bilbo too, felt his heart grown cold. It had seemed so strange, after a year or so of hearing Gloin's incessant praising of young Gimli during the quest, that he had greeted the boy with no more than, _"Hn. Thought you'd be taller by now,"_ upon their reunion. But Gimli had responded more or less in kind and now Bilbo knew it to simply be the way of dwarves.

No one could have questioned Gloin's feelings when they'd seen him kneel by the lad's bedside, gripping his hand tightly as he screamed into a leather bit from the cold. Nor was Gloin the only one there who loved him; far from it.

Ori was the first to recognise his brother, crying, "Nori!" and urging his pony on. The other dwarves soon overtook, and Ori and Bilbo ended up side by side, flanked by the guards.

They met about a mile from Erebor, with the other party loath to meet their eyes as soon as they were close enough to make them out.

"Nori!" called Thorin, but Gloin cut him off with a voice that shook with emotion.

"Nori, tell me what's happened!" he demanded. "Is it Gimli? Has something happened to my boy!?"

Taken aback, Nori hesitated – an instant which Gloin took to growl and jump from his mount. Oin also dismounted, a little slower, and raced to hold his brother back as he looked like he might do Nori harm before the former thief could answer.

Seeing this, Thorin too dismounted and strode forward. "Nori, please," he said grimly. "Tell us, is it Gimli?"

Nori looked at Thorin like he was afraid the king might cut him down – more afraid of him that Gloin for sure, Bilbo realised, and that set the dread in his heart to boil like a cauldron even before Nori shook his head with –

"No, no I've not heard anything has happened to Gimli," he said.

He came down from his own goat just as Gloin stopped struggling against Oin's hold, and Thorin drew back from him a little, glancing at the faces of the guards he'd brought with him – mostly hidden, yet still showing fear and horror through the slits in the metal.

Bilbo thought he might have stopped breathing. He _knew_ , in his heart, before Nori came up to Thorin slowly, as one who had been stabbed, and put his hands on the king's shoulders.

He just knew.

And Nori said –

"My king… Princess Roselin has been kidnapped."

The wind stopped blowing. Thorin went still, and Nori elaborated.

"The _elves_ have taken your daughter."

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

At the western border of the great forest called Greenwood or Mirkwood depending on one's personal appraisal of the land (and for most it was the latter), at the furthest western end of the elven road, two riders approached – one on a dark brown gelding with a black mane, the other on a tall light-chestnut mare.

The latter rider turned with a smile to his companion.

"This is the gateway to my home," he announced, pale gold hair fluttering in the early winter wind. "Though if we do not pass a patrol I do not intend to detour to my father's realm – not on the way through, at least."

Perhaps on the way back, was implied. He continued –

"Do you think we'll arrive ahead of Lord Elrond?"

The other rider paused, still taking in the sight of the antler-like gateway to the frankly – though he did not know if he'd say it out loud – _foreboding_ wood. Then he swallowed, ignored his companion's question and offered his own.

"Are you sure you don't want to visit your father, Legolas?"

Legolas looked deep into the wood, eyes narrowing. There seemed to him to be a certain bite to the cold around the red-brown leaves that was unusual, yet somehow familiar too, and not in a good way.

"I will see him," he said, though his human companion could not quite decipher his tone. "But we shall head to Dale first."

He grinned.

"Don't lose sight of me while we're in the wood, Estel."

With that, the two riders urged their horses into the forest.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Personally I think Thranduil's 'Go find Aragorn - we need to name-drop him somehow in this film!' suggestion to Legolas at the end of the 3rd movie was kind of silly, but I do like the idea of Legolas and young!Aragorn hanging out, so in this universe there was no such suggestion, Legolas just happened to run in to Aragorn and become friends. Also, Aragorn is about halfway between his movie and book age in the fic, so about seventeen or equivalent, which in medieval-type-lands is pretty much an adult.)


	4. Pandemonium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to wait until today to post this chapter because today's my birthday, and that makes far more sense than the excuse being that I've been my usual lazy and forgetful self.
> 
> Today's chapter involves Fili beating himself up over things that weren't his fault, and the beginning of a less heartwarming story of a princess and seven dwarves than the one the readers might be used to...
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Erebor was in uproar.

The clattering footsteps of armoured guards on the stone walkways thundered like hailstorms in Fili's head as he sat, shaking, on the throne.

Doing nothing.

Following much pleading from his councillors he had been undeterred in his intention to ride out towards Mirkwood, find Roselin, crush the skulls of the elves that had taken her with his bare hands and bring her back to the mountain before Thorin had to suffer any longer than necessary. It had been Bofur who had had to remind him that with him gone, the mountain would be left under no one in particular's rule, and if something should have happened to his mother…

There were legions of soldiers under his family's command; battle-hardened all, and every bit as qualified to join the search as he was. More qualified, as it had not been under their watch that their princess had been taken. The point was that as ruler in Thorin's absence, it was his duty to continue to rule, and not to run off into danger without a thought.

This is what Fili, son of Dis, told himself as he sat on his uncle's throne and shook with the need to do something, _anything_ to make up for his failure – and more importantly to retrieve his baby cousin.

But he felt like he would go mad regardless.

A messenger hurried towards the throne just then – his voice sounding at first like it came from far away until it suddenly snapped into crystal clarity.

"My prince, the King approaches the Mountain!"

So soon!? Fili's heart lurched. The others must have already been coming back, and that meant the orc-spawn Thranduil was well out of their reach, if he had even deigned to come down to Dale at all, which Fili now doubted. It would have been needlessly dangerous given what Thranduil had been planning to do, though his epistolary agreement to appear had worked as an impressive lure.

Fili made the effort to swallow down his despair.

"Has he been informed?" he asked.

The messenger bowed. "Lord Nori travelled at his side," he confirmed. "He must have already been told of what has occurred."

That made it about a drop easier, not that Fili deserved such a boon as that. It should have been left to him to explain on his knees what had happened, and to accept the full force of Thorin's rage, which poor Nori had no doubt been subjected to instead.

"He will want to speak to me then," he said, putting every effort into keep his voice steady. "I will go to meet him."

When he rose from the throne he had no business sitting on his vision swam, and his gait was stiff as he walked down the lone stone path away from it. The limp Oin had warned was there for life now since Azog had given it him felt heavier than usual, like that right knee would buckle in a few more steps. It was thanks to the elves he even had the leg to limp on, he remembered with disgust, wishing they'd left it well alone, and him an amputee as yet undefiled by their touch.

Then Bofur, his ever-present hat gripped in one hand, reminded his presence to Fili by gripping his shoulder with the other, fingers digging in through the leather.

"No one blames you," the older dwarf told him, looking into his eyes with a certainty Fili wished he could feel. "You hear me, lad, don't you? _No one_ thinks this was your fault."

There were so many rebuttals to that that for a long moment Fili couldn't decide which to use first. At length one path appeared to him –

"The doors were watched on both sides," he grit out. "Thorin had even had the secret passage guarded. They should not have been able to get out or in, yet somehow I let it happen anyway – "

Bofur began shaking his head and put the hand still holding his hat on Fili's other shoulder, steadying him.

"Lad, that's what I've been trying to say; anything that could have reasonably been expected to be done was done; all precautions were taken! Whatever magic they used to do this – "

"Like the magic they used to assault the treasury!?" Fili hissed. "We should have expected they'd strike again as soon as Thorin was away from the mountain. I should have had her at my side at all times to keep her safe, her and my mother! I should have – "

"Hey, if you're going to go down that route then it's as much Thorin's fault for not taking her with him!" Bofur said, firmly but gently. Then he sighed, eyes growing sadder. "He won't be angry with you, Fili – "

"Well, he should be," Fili spat, and with that he marched on towards his fate.

The entire path down was like something out of a nightmare – everywhere dwarrow staring at him as he passed by; accusingly in his mind. He could hear from various corners those spitting hatred at the accursed elves; the cries of a dwarrow-dam he was surprised to see still out in the open after what had happened, even less than half a dozen hours hence, their words unintelligible yet filled with sorrow.

There were no children anywhere to be seen.

It was a chore to keep his eyes open and looking straight – especially when he first caught sight of his uncle coming in from the cold, still mounted as his attendants rushed to him, and Dwalin leapt forward to help him climb, as stiffly as Fili felt in his own legs, from the war-goat. Thorin pushed him away with the back of his arm as soon as he was grounded, saying nothing; the despair in Dwalin's look at that alone was hard to watch.

When Thorin turned around and Fili saw his face his nerve failed him and of their own accord almost his eyes turned away. He couldn't describe the expression on his uncle's face, it was horrific.

Anger there was, to be sure, but not as he'd expected the primary emotion present. Instead Thorin's eyes were wide as if he'd seen the spirits of the restless dead themselves charge at him, or else as if he'd faced down Durin's Bane. And though Fili did not think the white in his uncle's hair could have increased within hours alone, that which had already been there seemed to stand out so much clearer than before.

And though Thorin did not say anything, Fili heard his voice as clear as the hammer of Mahal in his mind's ear.

_'What have you done?'_ the voice asked him.

_What have you DONE!?_

He had failed – even as his stiff legs finally failed him, and he collapsed to his knees before his King.

"Forgive me, my king," he choked out. "You left her in my care and I have failed you, forgive me!"

The tears in his eyes blurred the sight of the stone beneath his shaking hands. He had no right to ask for forgiveness, he knew it, but the words had escaped him nonetheless.

A pair of stronger hands than his grasped his shoulders, and he looked back up into Thorin's haunted gaze. There was a long pause as the King gathered enough wherewithal to speak, and even then he could only manage two words, confused and breathless.

"What happened?"

Again, Fili could not meet his uncle's eyes. He shook his head and tried to gather his courage enough to obey the command for an explanation, though his own voice sounded hateful to him.

"I had taken your place at the inspection of the silver vein Bofur's men discovered," he began – and stupidly, he felt, for Thorin would have already known that. "Thyri son of Thyrim brought the word from the inner sanctum – a maid had alerted the watch. She'd been bringing a meal to Mother when she'd found the guards outside the nursery slain – "

"My sister?" Thorin demanded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kili draw up with sudden alarm.

Fili took a deep breath. "Alive – and Dori is watching over her. The devils knocked her out and bound her hands; the healer says she'll live but knows not when she will awake. Roselin was nowhere to be seen. All other guards and two handmaids were slain."

Thorin made a noise like a bear caught in a trap and tightened his grip on Fili's shoulders.

"When?" he asked.

"Not five hours past," Fili told him. His head was still shaking like he wanted to deny any of it. "Likely as soon as they thought you were as far away from the mountain as you planned to go, though we don't know how long it was between when the attack happened and when it was discovered. It couldn't have been more than an hour, from what the maid said."

"How could they have got in and out without anyone knowing about it though?!" cried Balin, and looking towards him at the sound of his voice Fili was struck to see the older dwarf more visibly distressed than he had ever seen him before.

Helplessly, Fili could only keep on shaking his head.

"However they got in before to raid the treasury they did it again, I shouldn't wonder," said Bofur, stepping forward to stand right at Fili's side.

A number of sharp glances resulted from Bofur's pronouncement though, and Fili could not have said why.

Bofur continued, "We don't know for sure they've made it out again; Erebor has ten thousand hiding places for a group of magically inclined elves and a dwarfling, but I have to say if it was so easy for them to get in unseen, even with security heightened, I don't know why they'd have stayed 'til now."

"How do you… ?"

Fili's heart seized in his chest once more. He'd been so occupied with what Thorin would think of or say to him that he'd almost forgotten Bilbo, but hearing his lost-sounding voice was just as painful as Thorin's cold horror. It was as though the hobbit forgot what he was saying halfway through before he cleared his throat, blinking back tears, and asked.

"How are you sure it was the elves?"

"They were seen."

The voice came from the roads down into the markets, and belonged to Uril, the eldest son of Bombur. A few years younger than Kili, Uril was about half the width of his father and shared his style of beard, though he'd inherited his mother's sable colour rather than his father's red. Apprenticed to the Royal Guard alongside Gloin's Gimli after Erebor had been retaken, Uril was normally a merry soul – when his comrades hadn't been wounded or killed by elves, nor his princess kidnapped.

With younger sisters of his own, the young dwarf had taken more even than most already did to the babe – called the 'dwobbit' by those of them who liked to tease. To Bilbo too, for that matter, general dwarrow opinion of whom remained divided – if rarely actually 'negative' – outside the Company.

Fili found the look on Uril's face as he glanced over him just as accusing as the others'.

"Seen?" repeated Balin.

Uril nodded. Then to Fili he said, "We've had word from all entrances and exits – nothing. Tulin son of Tulorm was sent to relieve a troop of the company Lord Bifur lead towards the forest so that word of their progress could be brought back."

Rubbing his brow as if to sooth the pain behind it, Fili pushed away at Bofur's efforts to help him to his feet.

"They were sent only to scout though," he said.

"Aye," said Uril. "But if they do find any elves I doubt that's all they'll do."

His voice was dark, and could not be argued with, even if Fili feared with such powers as the elves were now displaying it would have been a hopeless effort.

Then he cursed himself for fearing. They were dwarves, after all. The elves could not prevail against them.

They were dwarves.

"Who saw them?" Balin pressed, eager to return them to the previous line of conversation.

Again, Fili's head shook from side to side. "Another patrol," he told them. "Sent to relieve the guards who'd been killed, they heard the maid's screaming and looked over the immediate area – they saw the culprits with Roselin fleeing towards the upper levels – at least two, and wearing the Mirkwood colours. They vanished when the dwarves followed them around a corner, but left this."

He reached into an inner pocket of his robes of state and retrieved the leather wallet whose inside was stained with the still-wet blood of Fili's people. The blood had been smeared over an elven battle-dagger, undoubtedly from Mirkwood; there had been hundreds of that one's like at the Battle of Five Armies and all who had been present recognised it as such. Fili presented the evidence to Thorin, who nodded grimly.

"The devils," he growled. At first it looked as though he would reach out and touch it, but then his hand withdrew, and clenched into a fist. His next words were near a sob. "You were right, Gloin! I should not have believed his lies."

He bellowed his rage out to the mountain, and Fili was sure the entire mountain heard it.

" _A curse on Thranduil, son of Oropher – on his kin, and on all elves_!"

That dark utterance echoed in the ears of all of them for long, heavy moments, as the fires flickered.

With 'all elves' said, Kili wondered aloud, "Brother, where is Tauriel?" and Thorin glared, misliking more than usual now his younger nephew's relationship of easy banter with the she-elf, though with good reason.

Yet it was a pertinent question.

"In the cells," Fili said. "For her own protection as much as anything, I do not think she had anything to do with it but others will, and do."

Tauriel had come willingly, the look of disbelief on her face when told the news so encompassing that Fili had no doubts in voicing his opinion of her lack of involvement.

Thorin, however –

"Oh, is that so?" he snarled. "Given all that's happened you don't think that son of an orc made up his whole spat with the she-elf in order to get an agent inside the mountain!? I should never have trusted her further than I could spit her out!"

Fili didn't have the heart to argue with Thorin on that, given his responsibility for the situation, but Bilbo voiced his thoughts well enough – and was likely the only one in this situation who could without rousing Thorin's anger to all-new heights.

"No," he said, distantly. "No, she wouldn't have stayed in the mountain afterwards if that was the case. If Tauriel did have any involvement, I don't think it was knowingly."

"She'll stay in her cell nonetheless," Balin decreed, probably seeing this point turning into one of contention to dire conclusions. "Until we have more information. My king, perhaps we should adjourn to the infirmary to check on your sister."

From the look in his eyes he meant, 'to the infirmary… and out of the open', where dozens of guardsmen and spare hands stood by, watching events unfold with horror.

After a long pause where Thorin took several long breaths to stop himself from exploding, and all others awaited his next move, he finally turned on his heel and stormed off in the direction spoken of. Everyone else following fast behind.

All apart from Fili – who wanted to follow but found his legs would not obey him. They found themselves quite comfortable kneeling on the hard rock like a wretch, and he supposed no one could have blamed them for it. He was the useless fool who had allowed his cousin and princess to be abducted from what should have been the most secure location in Middle Earth by a group of elves.

Roselin.

There was no doubt she was as dear to him and Kili as any sister, for Thorin was their father in all but blood and even there they shared enough of it. Fili had never thought to have a sister, for his mother would obviously have no other child since his father had died shortly after Kili's birth, and Thorin had seemed unlikely to find a wife, content with his nephews as his heirs – the more fool him.

… No, that was being unfair to Kili.

But even when Thorin had eventually found love it had been with another male, and that would have been the end of that except that male hobbits could apparently bear young.

It still sounded strange. To say it had sounded so at the time had been an understatement, but it could not be denied once Oin and Elrond of Rivendell had pulled a squalling infant from their burglar's body. Up until that point Fili thought the bulk of the mountain must have still only half-believed it could be possible, yet it had happened.

No one denied it now, although many still thought there may only have been some confusion between Bilbo and the rest of them over whether or not he was actually male – and indeed once the Company had been told the news of Bilbo's pregnancy, there had been some discussion as to whether they might have misinterpreted Bilbo's gender all along. After all, other races often thought dwarrow-dams the same as dwarves on meeting them, and among strangers they were introduced as and treated as dwarves for their protection.

Then someone had pointed out that Thorin would have had to first put the baby in the hobbit for him to be pregnant, and having done that one might have expected him to realise whether or not his consort had the expected equipment. Much childish giggling had ensued.

None of them had cared a jot once Roselin had actually been born. Small for a dwarf babe yet not unnaturally so, she had been very big for a hobbit, requiring that Elrond cut her free from the womb in the end. Fili remembered waiting with his heart in his throat outside the birthing chamber, Kili's hand squeezing his so painfully it had gone past his being able to feel it, listening to the elf's soft voice explaining his actions to Oin should he have ever needed to perform the operation twice; for Oin knew how to open a dwarrow-dam's womb with the least risk to mother and child if the occasion called for it, but had never attended a Hobbit, let alone a male one before.

Having to watch Thorin through that… Fili only did not have nightmares because the sight of his uncle holding his little daughter in his arms, the look on his face, had banished all such terrors.

A little darling she had been from the start; loud and strong. At three, however, she was even bigger than a dwarf-babe would be, had teethed in half the time it would have taken a dwarf and had a few words even in her vocabulary, much sooner than an ordinary dwarf would, though in movement she was much along the expected lines, just recently appearing as though she might like to stand up soon.

Or she had been. Fili thought of her in the hands of elves, forgotten in a tree while they plotted whatever foul scheme they hoped to see through with this, her curly black hair left unkempt, her cries unheard – and all because the cousin who had sworn to protect her…

Strong arms suddenly pulled him to his feet. Bofur had run after Thorin in a hurry, so for a moment Fili was surprised, until a familiar palm cupped his cheek to turn his eyes towards a familiar face.

"Fili?" Kili asked him anxiously.

Fili could think of nothing to say in return. There was no excuse for this situation. No hope of consolation unless Roselin was returned.

But so many things could have happened already.

Kili's hand tightened around his.

"Come on, brother," he said. "She'll be all right."

There was a weak smile on Kili's face as he tucked one of Fili's braids behind his ear. His voice made a valiant attempt at strength, but Fili heard an underlying question in it, as though he was the one asking his older brother to assure him Roselin would indeed be all right.

Fili turned his head away from Kili's comfort to watch Thorin striding on towards the inner mountain. The stone hall between them seemed to stretch the longer he looked at it, moving him further and further away from the king's side.

Eventually he forced himself to comply with Kili's urging them in the same direction, but every step he took forward still made him feel as though he were falling away. It was almost like being back in Mirkwood, beset by elvish enchantments on all sides.

Elves. His fists clenched.

Why do something like this? For a necklace they'd already stolen? Because they just hated all dwarves that much, even the dwarrow-child of one they'd named a friend?

Fili would destroy them if Roselin was lost.

Destroy them all.

The whole forest.

…

…

… and himself with it, in repentance. Though he doubted Thorin would forgive him even then.

Fili never would.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

In a dark twilight washed grey with mist, a single slender boat slid through the waters of the lake. This was no barge such as had been wont to traverse these waters in the days of Smaug's dominion over the Lonely Mountain, nor the sleeker, better-wrought descendants the men who were now of Dale and those who had stayed and rebuilt Laketown used since they had the coin for their purchase and upkeep, nor any of the elven crafts the inhabitants of the Greenwood used to trade in the cities of Men.

No, alongside any of those this boat would have appeared an odd bird indeed; shorter, yet higher above the water, yet with a thicker hull. Not often did dwarves put their skills to the engineering of vessels meant to traverse water, but when they did, a boat such as this one was a typical result.

There were seven dwarves and one _other_ on this boat, and excepting the other each passenger had but one thought on their mind, a thought which was for something dwarves usually did not care for.

Keeping silent.

Or more specifically, keeping their cargo silent.

"Should have circled around the mountain from the beginning," muttered one dwarf, worriedly.

"Hush!" said the one next to him.

The fellow sitting adjacent to them at the stern of the boat frowned, muttering, "Thorin has that pass far too well-watched. We would never have gotten away by land."

The first dwarf glared, hissing, "Yes, but they should have been looking for elves, not dwarrow! That was the whole point of leaving an elvish dagger at the scene – "

"Will you be quiet!"

" – and now we're going in the wrong direction entirely! Thorin will _expect_ the elves to take the route to Mirkwood – !"

"He'll expect the culprits to go along the Elven Road, as long as we stay off that we can cut through the wood somewhat to the south."

"We can't go into the wood without taking the path! The stories are clear – "

"The stories are made up by fools who wish to make themselves seem cleverer for having found their way out of a cursed forest. I cannot see how we will not make it to the other side if we simply keep going in the same direction, and they will not dare to look for us away for the path thanks to those stupid tales you put so much stock in!"

The raising of this dwarf's voice towards the end of his rant had upset their cargo, for she gave a muffled cry then from within the gem-encrusted chest she had been hidden in, and then another.

In response, the dwarf who had raised his voice – even though he was also the dwarf who had been telling the others to be quiet – gave the chest an annoyed swift kick.

The cries grew louder.

"Garig!" the dwarf on his right protested, hand shooting out to grab his companion's arm, where it was at once thrown off, accompanied by a warning look from the angry dwarf.

Garig was indeed his name; Garig son of Horig, son of Brig, and he was the leader of this band. The dwarf who had grabbed him drew back in recognition of this, but had no time to think of some other way of mollifying his cousin since the cries from within the chest increased in volume suddenly.

"Mahal take the creature, I thought she'd fallen asleep," muttered the dwarf at the other end of the bow.

"Are you sure we don't need to poke a few air holes into that – "

"I'll toss the little half-breed down to Smaug before I put holes in a chest made by Olfi of Khazad-Dum," snapped Garig. Then he saw the looks on some of his dwarrows' faces and reconsidered letting them think on that eventuality too hard. "Besides, the chest is not air-tight."

It might have been once, but having been used carelessly by the family whose hands it had fallen into (through not entirely legitimate means, some said) the wear around the hinges was noticeable. It worked against them though; in an air-tight chest the babe's cries would have been hidden far better.

The oldest member of their company then craned his neck out to look at the fog and broke the silence with,

"Speaking of Smaug he should have come down somewhere about these parts. I can see shapes in the mist that look like houses. The men of New Laketown will not venture out to these waters, so we are safe for now."

The dwarf on his left sighed. "What makes it any safer for us than for them?"

"The hammer that'll be journeying from my side to the side of your fat head if you don't stop whining for one," said another dwarf, opposite him.

Garig snorted with approval at his words, seeing the whining dwarf suitably cowed.

"My brother Darig speaks true," he said, giving Darig a nod. "We'll travel along close to the shore once we've passed Old Laketown and reach the road through the forest by nightfall."

"I don't think our time will be made so well," worried the same dwarf who had protested his treatment of their chest of half-breed before. "And we cannot sail in darkness if this fog doesn’t clear. We should have stuck with the original plan."

The cries of said half-breed were beginning to die down as she tired herself out – much quicker than the first few times since she was tired already, not having the strength of a true dwarrow. It was about the only reason Garig didn't take his worrywart cousin by the beard and knee him in the nose. As it was he ignored him, and shook his head.

Darig was happy to stand up for him though.

"You think we shouldn't have taken advantage of the filthy elves deciding to attack the treasury?" he asked. "Honestly, Arim, you complain worse than our grandmother would."

The comparison amused Garig, but it was a dark amusement. The grandmother he and Darig shared with Arim was Tus, daughter of Hir, and frankly he considered the blame for the mess they'd found themselves in – trundling down a lake with a group of ne'er-do-wells and the King under the Mountain's daughter in a chest – to lie at her feet, ultimately. Her, and her fanatical devotion to the traditions of their people. Her and the trouble she'd caused their whole line with her tongue.

Not that he wouldn't have eviscerated anyone who said a bad word against his grandmother – or would have if they hadn't been surrounded by guards day and night, which accounted for Dain Ironfoot's continued ownership of his guts – but he was hardly happy with the way things had turned out: not only cut off from their original escape route due to increased security measures for the very event that had spurred them into action in the first place, but with the odds of this long gambit entirely unsure to be paid off.

_Should have killed the King's sister_ , he thought to himself, though the more rational part of him knew the gambit would never have paid off if they had. _She saw us, and hoping she won't remember when she wakes is a fool's hope._

The only hope not foolish enough to be discarded was that Dis did not wake up soon enough to make a difference. After that they would –

"Where do we go after we reach the other side of the forest?" asked their youngest comrade, Zini. "We didn't have time to arrange for pick-up when we decided to strike early."

Darig shrugged. "We go north," he said. "I know it's a detour, but our uncle is expecting us in the Grey Mountains, where some pockets of those who resisted the old king's rule still scrape a living outside cold-drake territory."

Zini frowned. "But do we have food for a baby for such a long journey? And in those mountains too?"

Arim looked up then, worried suddenly, as if he hadn't considered it. So did most of the others, but when Darig looked to Garig with questioning eyes, Garig recognised a resignation in them also that told him his brother had already guessed the answer to that.

He'd needed a crew as large as seven to take out the entire guard of the nursery quickly enough to grab the half-breed, but while it was simple enough to find those willing to do the regular foul things for a chance of future wealth – and power too – well. Himself, Darig and another fellow, Agaf, had he trusted alone to go into the nursery and take care of the maids. The taboo against the slaying of dwarrow-dams was deep enough for him to have realised that about his other companions.

As for babes?

Well, for that he wouldn't even have expected it of Darig.

As for the others, he surmised he'd need to wait a little longer before desperation was enough upon them that they'd make no move to stop him from doing the deed. Somewhere in the forest would do it. He wouldn't even have to take an active role, just quietly leave the little lump in a thicket somewhere and let nature take its course.

Garig was no fool. He knew what had to happen, and that he'd need to manage his little host carefully to see it come to pass.

Although in actuality, it annoyed him that Zini would think it was going to end any other way.

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

 


	5. Overview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will soon add another chapter since this one is entirely OCs. On that subject - introducing the villains of the piece! In this chapter, Varalinde has an elf-dwarf-man Three Hunter team before it was cool! 
> 
> Cool - geddit? Because she has ice-powers? Ha, I'm the funniest person I know...

 

 

~*~*~

 

 

" _O weary traveller rest your head,_

_Surround the snow upon thy face_

_At Winter's thaw shall ye emerge_

_Crowned white above a green embrace._

_O wanderers – fear not to rest!_

_Within the lovely snow-queen's care,_

_Thou willst be ta'en from mortal woes,_

_Thou willst become a snowdrop fair._ "

 

Thus did the recital end.

Cirendrior bowed, one elegant hand sweeping across his middle as he finished his ode to their Mistress on that happy note. As soon as Varalinde brandished her hand for him to kiss the tinkling of ice breaking upon ice sounded, as the Snow Queen's children announced their appreciation of the elf's verses with applause, the clatter of their sparkling limbs echoing in the tall, vaulted halls of the palace.

Karad watched with some amusement. Fussy old Cirendrior had been moping about that stupid poem not working ever since they'd been woken from the enchantment, whining about it to Karad at every occasion as he'd seen to his own work, as Koltain had had his blessed freedom – the lucky bastard – and was not there to be subjected to the drama.

If Karad hadn't known how futile the gesture would be coming from him, he'd have lopped the prissy elf's head off fifteen times over by now.

At length the clapping of the ice-children died down, and they were again as sculptures decorating the balconies of Varalinde's domain. Varalinde stroked her gentle hand down Cirendrior's white hair and then withdrew it, with a pleased smirk for Karad.

"Still not yet one for courtly poetry, my dwarf?"

With a snort the witch's dwarf stepped forward.

"It escapes me how three thousand years in an ice cube would have made me more appreciative, my lady. The one upside to that was that I didn't have to hear your elf's mewling voice."

Even if he had had to endure millennia with the bony elven twig slumped over his own body – he did not say, for it embarrassed them both that the sealing spell had happened to be cast while they'd been stood next to each other.

Cirendrior shot him a venomous glare, then stomped his foot against the icy floor and huffed, while their Mistress chuckled.

"One day, Karad," she said, "I deem thou willst wish for nothing but to hear Cirendrior's verse."

Karad snorted dismissively. Cirendrior folded his arms like a little girl.

"But come," the witch continued. "You have been just as hard at work as my elf, I hope. What have you forged for me, dear one?"

"A measly trinket, I fear," Karad replied, "to be brought before one so lovely as yourself, my lady." He grinned. "Though still worthier than any elf's offerings."

Said elf shot more venom with his eyes, but Varalinde's reaction was less amused than before, and Karad deemed their 'rivalry' ought to be put away for later at this time.

"Present it, dear Karad," Varalinde commanded.

It could not be said that Karad approached his mistress without trepidation, for he had forged nothing for the past several millennia in his sleep, and already deemed his latest craft to be less worthy than he was capable of. Rarely, in his long service to the witch, had he shown her anything that did not meet her approval, but the few items that had not passed muster had brought him dreadful punishment, and he'd no wish to suffer his lady's wrath for even so small an insult as a jewel that did not suit her tastes.

Still, he came to her, and from a pouch tied at his hip produced an elegantly wrought silver box that he presented on bended knee. He waited a moment to increase her suspense, and then slowly lifted the latch upon the box, proffering the opened case towards Varalinde.

Her eyes lit up with the gleam that reflected from the jewel inside. It was an opal, near enough the size of a small chicken's egg, nestled in a bed of silver flowers with diamond buds at their centres. The work was mounted on a lattice-patterned double-ring to fit specially around Varalinde's right middle and ring fingers, and the snow-queen soon had it on that very hand, holding it up to the light with a look of affection that greatly relieved Karad.

"Oh, Karad," she crooned. "It's almost perfect."

Any work of his she liked was described thus. Any except the one work that had tormented her dreams for three thousand years; now embracing her long white neck with its shining starlight gems. Karad bowed low.

"My lady is too kind," he told her.

She smiled. "Perhaps I am. But having slain so many of your kinsmen lately it brings me great comfort to be reminded of your people's true worth." Her black eyes turned from the ring to him, piercing him. "Even if only one of them displays it."

Ah, yes. That little incident.

In all honesty Karad was not entirely unbothered by the killing of the dwarves who had guarded the treasury his mistress' treasure had been stored in. He yet remembered the teachings of his father, in Ages past… or at least that there had been teachings of the sort that he knew had seen such things as sacrilege, and though his father's name had long since been forgotten Karad was still certain he had loved the dwarf who'd given him life once.

_Khazad_ , he reminded himself. He'd heard no word of that tongue spoken for a dozen lifetimes.

But the bother was a small one, and he shrugged.

"Hardly kin of mine," he said. "The dwarves of Erebor are Longbeards mostly, are they not?"

Karad was of the Blacklock clan – or had been, he mused, brushing some of the frost from the rather more snowy than black locks of his beard.

"As you say," said Varalinde. "In which case I shall not worry about it."

She began to laugh, but then stilled suddenly, looking towards the path up to the palace beyond the walls as though she'd heard something.

"But hush now," she said. "Koltain approaches."

That announcement had Cirendrior and Karad share a look.

Sure enough, the cheerful whistling of a man who never doubted himself for a moment soon floated down the hallway to their ears. Varalinde sat back on her throne, re-crossed her legs beneath her flowing gown and resting her elbows on the arms she interlaced her fingers, smiling almost peacefully. Koltain had always been her favourite.

The shadow of the man came first, then he himself, the youngest of the three in looks – and indeed in age, though after the first thousand years of each other's company that had ceased to matter. Koltain was the only one among them who had not been full-grown when Varalinde's magic ceased their aging (not that Cirendrior had needed such a boon for agelessness, but then he was not unaffected by their mistress' power either), appearing to be a boy of about sixteen years – for indeed he had been when the spell was cast.

His white hair was slicked back and he wore a long grey-brown coat that he had not ridden out with, which had Varalinde cock her head and frown, the first thing she mentioned once he was close enough for conversation, and Karad was not surprised. Varalinde made all their clothes herself, had done ever since…

Well. Ever since her mother's… death. If you called it that.

"Koltain, my hunter, whyfore dost thou appear before us clothed in such a manner?"

The ever-present grin on Koltain's face grew wider; mischievous. He spread his arms and twirled a full circle on one foot, sliding easily over the ice with a little hop before he continued to walk forward.

"Why, my lady," he replied, "this fashion is all the rage in Dale. I'll have you know that if I was a few degrees shabbier, looked older, darker-haired, and stank of fish, I'd be the spitting image of the great Bard Dragon-Slayer!"

Varalinde raised her eyebrows. 

"The king of the city of Men?" Varalinde inquired, thoughtfully.

"The same. Fear not, my lady, from what I've heard he is but a skilled enough archer who happened to have a lucky shot, fighting a dragon who happened to have neglected to cover one weak spot. I'm afraid King Fisherman will be little threat to us."

As he came before the throne, Karad shuffled to one side, and Cirendrior mirrored him on the other, but not as silently as him.

"Was there ever any doubt of that?" he muttered. "Men have always been the easiest to kill."

Koltain's white teeth flashed towards the elf.

"To have survived the company of such a fearsome elven warrior so long must make me the luckiest man alive, in that case," he said cheerfully.

"Certainly the oldest," offered Karad, and Koltain laughed.

"Boys," Varalinde warned, though with a smile. "But tell us, dear Koltain, what other news of the world hast thou discovered?"

With a wince, Koltain shrugged his shoulders. "I'm afraid I felt it unwise to risk coming into contact with Cirendrior's folk, since there was a chance an elf would recognise me from before our little sleep." He grinned again. "And easily kill me. As for the mortal races, well, the stock of Karad and myself are hard-pressed enough to remember what happened in the last one hundred years, let alone one thousand. And it has been closer to three, from what little I could gather."

"I had guessed as much from feeling the age of the world alone," said Varalinde. "But surely the men knew if Oropher still claimed to rule beneath the trees?"

Koltain snorted. "Nay, my lady. I couldn't say if he had sailed or been slain, though knowing him he'd have been slain long before he sailed – "

Varalinde grinned like a demon.

" – but the men say it is now our old friend Thranduil who rules the Greenwood. Which they now call the Mirkwood, since it has been beset by evil for some centuries now."

"Meaning Thranduil, most like," said Varalinde. "For we would say there is no greater evil than that wretched thief and ruiner left in Middle Earth, if as you say the thief and upstart who spawned him has fallen."

She paused.

"I deem that 'Mirkwood' well describes any forest where my beloved no longer dwells."

The three servants of the ice-witch allowed her a long moment of silence to caress the glittering necklace at her throat, her black eyes staring off into space. But soon Koltain must have thought it more prudent to take her mind off that.

"Indeed, my lady, the one other thing the men could tell me was that according to their knowledge the elf-king possessed only one child – a son."

"A son!?" Varalinde started at this news, standing up, and again Cirendrior and Karad exchanged a look, now with more alarm than annoyance. "And only a son, you say?"

"So they said to me, my lady."

"But then what of dear Lasniniel, whom I had planned to bring to this domain to live in happiness with her mother and her other kin!? What has that monster done that the child of my beloved is no longer in this world!?"

Koltain shook his head. "No man I talked to could say, or even had heard that Thranduil had a daughter; only a son – whose name, they said, was 'Legolas'. I did not think it wise to search so hard that any word of it might reach the ears of the thief himself – not at this stage."

Karad privately suspected the sympathy on Koltain's face was not affected, but was directed at himself rather than their mistress. Karad had never seen Lasniniel, but if she had been anything like her mother then she had been much like Koltain's favourite type of female; golden-haired and elven.

He wondered sometimes why Koltain's drive for such dalliances was still so high, when he himself had felt numb to such things for millennia. Perhaps Karad had simply always been a dwarf of low to no drive for such things, or perhaps Koltain would always retain the wildness of the youth he'd been trapped in. It wasn't as though there was anyone for Karad to discuss such things with.

Well, except for Cirendrior, but then Karad wasn't quite that desperate for discussion of Koltain's sex-life.

Meanwhile, Varalinde's horror at the news that the elf-maid she had always desired as a consolation prize was likely just as beyond reach as her mother, without even jewels left behind, had turned somewhat contemplative.

"… _Legolas_ , you say?" she asked, slowly sitting back down on her throne. "I wish I could say he must have been a child of a second wife, but it would be unusual for an elf to do such a thing."

"Not unheard of, my lady," offered Cirendrior.

She shook her head. "It _was_ reported to us that Lasniniel carried an infant in her arms when she escaped the capture of her parents by Gundabad. This we remember."

Karad remembered it also, along with the tantrum that had ensued from his mistress at the thought that the elf-maid may have been a maid no longer.

"It could have been a younger brother," Varalinde continued musing. " _Legolas_. Even if he is not Elodwë's son, he is Thranduil's, and can be used to hurt him."

The consideration on Varalinde's face was more troubled than before – this, Karad guessed, was since his mistress preferred the female form in her lovers. But she did not entirely eschew the male, and below their feet in Varalinde's Hall of Remembrance were shrines to two, along with her sixteen female loves.

"I was told," Koltain began slyly, "that I may have heard mistakenly that Thranduil had a daughter because his son was surely as pretty as a princess." He shrugged. "By the standards of Men, anyway."

Despite the addendum, Karad could see his mistress had been hooked by Koltain's words. He saw Cirendrior roll his eyes across from him and wondered if the elf was as _slightly_ bothered by these particular goings-on as Karad had been by the slaying of the dwarrow guards in Erebor.

He would have doubted it of that one, except that he would have just as soon have doubted the other thing of himself. And for Cirendrior, it would have been yet more personal.

"In that case," said Varalinde, "we shall seek him out. If he is Elodwë's son I will give him the place I had prepared for his sister – " Koltain wrinkled his nose, for he had no desire for males of any race, "– and if he is not then I will simply destroy Thranduil through him until I am satisfied no greater damage can be done." She sniffed. "After all, it would have been a grave insult to my beloved for Thranduil to dare take another wife after failing to protect Elodwë." Her eyes narrowed. "And to try and replace his lovely daughter with a son…"

Koltain laughed suddenly, as one reminded of something funny.

"Ah, my lady – I forgot to mention," he announced. "Thranduil may no longer have his own daughter, but he does apparently have that of the King under the Mountain!"

Varalinde gave him a blank look, which both Cirendrior and Karad copied.

"My hunter, whatever dost thou mean?"

"Why, mistress, that as I made my way back up along the river I came across a party of dwarven scouts from Erebor, riding their little goats. There were seven of them, six warriors and at their head a most resplendent fellow – " the tone of Koltain's voice belied the fact that he thought it a joke to describe any dwarf as 'resplendent', and Karad clenched his fists. "– who introduced himself as Bifur, son of Bijur, and faithful servant of King Thorin. He asked me if I had seen any elves on my journey, and if I had, had they been carrying an infant – for the despicable wretch Thranduil had sent his agents to abduct the baby daughter of their king earlier that same day!"

Varalinde stared for a second, black eyes comically wide, and then let out a laugh of disbelief.

"What?" she exclaimed. "What on earth would Thranduil want with a squalling dwarf-babe?"

Koltain shrugged, still grinning. "Perhaps he's lonely, since so many of his kin are dead and it must be difficult for someone so loathsome to make friends."

Karad knew Thranduil well enough to doubt he cared so much for making friends. In fact, he'd have thought he knew Thranduil well enough to doubt he'd go around kidnapping baby dwarves. Though who knew? It had been three thousand years. Perhaps the elf had changed.

He looked at Cirendrior again and doubted it even more than before. What on earth was happening out there? Honestly; one was put under an enchantment for a few millennia and the whole world went mad. What could one do but make jokes about it?

"Don't be daft," he told Koltain. "We all know Thranduil has his beloved mirror to talk to if he gets lonely. No, by now he'll have heard my lady has her beloved back; I reckon he'll have taken the lass to train her up to make him his own trinkets."

"Or maybe he just wanted a light lunch?" quipped Koltain.

" 'Light' describes no dwarf I have ever seen, no matter how young," said Cirendrior dryly. "If I was to make an _actual_ guess, my lady, I would say Thranduil has taken the child to punish the dwarf for allowing you to reclaim your beloved from his treasury."

"Thank you, Cirendrior, we appreciate your willingness to take the matter seriously," Varalinde told them, but she was clearly amused. Then she sat back against the rounded ridges of her throne and pondered something for a moment. "Now I know this it seems a shame that we have already killed a few of the dwarf-king's people. We could have offered him an alliance."

"He may still be open to one," Koltain said, "assuming he cares more for his daughter than for a few guards."

Karad snorted. "Don't count on that, my lady. I'd stake my life that he cares more for his daughter than for guards, but whether he cares more for that than for his honour is another matter."

The all-consuming coldness that emanated from Varalinde sharpened as soon as he'd finished, and Karad knew he'd made a mistake.

"And why should it offend his honour to ally himself with me?" she asked him, with deceptive softness.

It had been a long time since Karad had felt his heart beat as fiercely as it did then. He swallowed.

"He is a dwarf, my lady," he tried. "You slew some of his people and your lady mother was an elf, so the other dwarves will consider you one too. They would not consider it honourable for him to ally with you, even for the sake of his daughter."

The silence seemed to stretch on longer than their enchantment had. Cirendrior was looking away, and Koltain was fighting to keep away a smirk, the little shit.

Then, at last, the tension in Varalinde's shoulders eased.

"Ah," she said. "Thou fearst it would be _politically_ unwise for him to ally with us."

"Or that he would think so," Karad added, breathing a sigh of relief. "He is a dwarf."

"And dwarves are foolish, save for one."

She smiled at him, and he bowed.

"My lady."

"Nonetheless I will offer him alliance – him and the Fisherman King – if they should bend their knee to me and pay me rightful homage. Any enemy of Thranduil's has at least a part of my regard." Then she laughed, probably considering again how utterly absurd it was for Thranduil to have taken his neighbour's daughter. "I should like to see him pursued over hill and vale by an army of little dwarves on goats. I think I would laugh as I have not done in three thousand years."

"Ah," said Koltain, guiltily.

Varalinde gave him a questioning glance.

He cleared his throat. "Well, my lady, I'm afraid that when Bifur son of Bijur asked me if I'd seen Thranduil's agents, I told him that the four I'd seen earlier had carried the crying babe south along the river as I'd passed them, that I'd called out to them and almost been hit by a flying dagger for my trouble."

"And?"

"And it was, I confess, something of an untruth, as I saw no such party during the entire time I was away from the palace."

"Oh, Koltain," Varalinde huffed, chastising. "You cruel thing."

She threw a conjured snowball at him, and he ducked even as it hit him in the chest.

Karad did not have to look to know Cirendrior rolled his eyes, as he did at half of what anyone who was not their mistress said, and at least a quarter of what she did too. Cirendrior had been the same for four… for seven thousand years now, or else had changed so slowly Karad had long forgotten what he'd once been like.

The same as Koltain. The same as Varalinde.

Like as not the same as Karad.

This was what they were and ever would be, for though the saga of Elodwë and Thranduil and the rest had lasted so much longer than any other, she had not been the first, and even now Varalinde had her sights set on another – this 'Legolas', wherever he might have been.

He did not doubt that after Legolas there would be another, and another after that, and another then after that. Yes, there was some comfort in this continuation, even if some might have said serving an elf-witch alongside two others he could not stand, forever, was a form of Hell, he still chuckled at the snowy powder falling down from Koltain's Fisherman-King coat.

Karad would continue to craft his treasures forever now.

And the palace sparkled always, like the inside of a diamond.

"Enough of this," Varalinde said, still in a better mood than she had been since awakening. "The most important question is still this: what has happened to Sauron the Deceiver and his servants?"

Ah, yes. There was that little matter…

 

 

*~*~*

 

 


	6. Strategy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Thranduil now, and more of the characters are introduced, namely his inner circle. Their exact relationships to him are revealed in-text, but for simplicity's sake I'll also put them here:
> 
> Ilirieth (who makes me regret creating a name that has a capital 'i' next to a lower-case 'l' in a sans serif font...) is Thranduil's first cousin by a younger sister of Oropher (Celedrion who was introduced earlier in the story is her husband). Geledar was once married to Oropher's younger brother, and is thus both Thranduil and Ilirieth's uncle-by-marriage. Aidhenian is Geledar's sister. I have created quite an extensive tree for their family... and promptly had most of them die horrible violent deaths in the First Age. 
> 
> In this chapter, the elves attempt to get srs biznes done despite a chronic need to snark at each other, and Thranduil possesses a random bird because reading glasses haven't been invented in Middle Earth. And don't work on people whose eyes have been severely burned...

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

As the tall oaks shed their orange-brown leaves, the preparations of the elves beneath them exploded into action at the terrible news their King had brought, near enough as soon as he'd come in through the gates.

Ilirieth and Aidhenian swept into the throne room together just as Thranduil was sending Findros forth.

"The wider map as well," Thranduil was telling him. "If time permits it then I would have several convoys prepared. And have someone call Geledar back from patrol!"

Aidhenian announced her presence with no greeting and twice as many criticisms to make up for it, as was her way.

"Surely, nephew, you do not intend to try and evacuate the entire kingdom into convoys to escape the witch?" she asked, loud but smooth, so all present could hear her words. "Such a display of weakness is beneath you. As for my brother, one might have thought you'd memorised the rotation of the patrols long enough ago to know he would have returned before you did – unless you simply lost track of time?"

Thranduil did not turn around to face her until she'd said her piece, and did so with a smile most of those present shrunk back from. It was a smile mirrored by Aidhenian.

"Lady Aidhenian," he greeted her. "One might have thought it unnecessary to pay such close attention to details in a kingdom where the king's advisor persistently forgets her king is not her nephew."

Next to the lady in question, Thranduil's cousin Ilirieth looked uncomfortable, shooting a glance to her husband, who merely raised his eyebrows. For this was a dance danced a thousand times before, if not ten times that. They'd lived in close quarters for a long time, after all.

Thranduil continued, "As for your fears, they are unfounded. The convoys will be made up of but a fraction of our people, so that some will have escaped should the worst come to pass. The longest the ice-sky ever fell over this land was five years, and though that very nearly destroyed the kingdom, I do not think the witch's power will have recovered enough for it. Yet it would be remiss of me not to prepare." He did not say that in his upset he had indeed lost track of the time on his way through the forest, instead turning to Ilirieth. "Cousin."

"My lord." She bowed her head to him, then approached Celedrion to kiss him in welcome.

When their lips touched it was brief, but Thranduil saw an understanding come into her eyes at once that left him with an ill feeling in his chest. She touched her husband's cheek where Thranduil had slapped him a moment later.

Then she looked straight at Thranduil. If he had expected her to show him anger once she knew what had happened he would have been wrong – but in truth he hadn't expected that because he probably knew Ilirieth better than any but Celedrion, and she him. This too they had danced before; if not with these exact steps, then with some close enough to evoke the memory of them.

Ilirieth and Celedrion were more forgiving of him then they likely ought to have been. But then, they'd all been through a lot together.

"Do we have the time for such preparations?" Aidhenian wondered, ignoring the exchange between the other three, though there was little doubt she'd marked it. "A single convoy to Dale may be our best hope – I would not have others sent along the orc-ridden road to Lothlorien if they could not be properly supplied in time. Unless, of course, you send them to beg for aid."

"We need no aid from Galadriel," Thranduil declared. "We have needed none in the past."

Admittedly that time Varalinde had almost destroyed the kingdom might have done better with the outside aid of such a powerful being, but then they also had their pride to think of.

"Nonetheless," he continued, "I worry that Dale is almost too close. With the ice-sky over the forest Varalinde will turn her attention to the surrounding lands, but she will not go much further south, unless this winter proves much harsher than expected."

His cousin sighed. "From what we know of Varalinde's power her awakening is what makes the approaching winter as cold as it is already. We should ask out listening allies what they have heard from the south, and from the west."

Thranduil gave a slight nod in agreement, though it mattered little in his mind whether Varalinde's power was making the winter colder or the cold winter was increasing her power.

"What of our supplies?" asked Aidhenian. "Time was, a surplus had always been prepared, but it has been three thousand years since we have faced this. Can we gather the necessary food, water and fuel?"

"I have kept those measures up despite the sealing of Varalinde," Ilirieth announced, with a nod to Aidhenian. "Water is the biggest problem, for the ice-sky also enchants the river, but even as we speak our people are collecting what they can, and I have regular reports on the condition of any bodies of water not connected to the river that fall within the boundaries of previous attacks."

Celedrion patted his horse as it was led away by an attendant. "And the beasts of the house?" he asked.

Ilirieth hummed. "That's the next problem," she said. "For they will not be able to stand the cold as we will, yet we cannot set them loose, nor send all of them to our allies."

"Most will survive a single season," Thranduil said. "Though I will have the youngest of Atheon's fawns sent to Dale for Bard's keeping. I have no doubt he will look after them."

He said this with a smirk, as he imagined the look on the man's face when confronted with the two.

"I thought the elks could easily survive in the wild?" said Celedrion, frowning.

"Bard doesn't need to know that," Thranduil told him – looking completely serious. "Come, we shall discuss the particulars when the maps are in front of us."

Thranduil turned, and with a flick of his wrist he beckoned the other three along behind him.

The initial reaction that he had seen of his people to the news of Varalinde's return had been good, he thought. Not in that they were happy at the thought of seeing her again, for many had lost friends to her cruel powers, but in that they had accepted it with quiet determination.

Even Celedrion, Ilirieth and Aidhenian – Ilirieth especially as she had suffered more due to Varalinde than the other two – had been calm and in Aidhenian's case as annoying as ever.

He could not have said whether any of them were simply putting on a good act. If the memories of ice, and fire, and blood and death and darkness that came with the cold even now were sinking into their hearts as they were into his.

He knew none of them would be returning to the same memory he was then – the emptiness of a winter plain, alive only with the snow dancing over snow, the wind screaming until the insides of his ears hurt with the sound as he'd trudged over it. He remembered feeling heavy, expecting almost to fall into the drift as a mortal would have, a red cloak flying out behind him and somehow not carrying him off with the snow.

Then he remembered seeing the second figure coming in from the north, cloak as white as the snow they trod on and thus invisible to him for much longer than she should have been; invisible until she'd lifted a head that looked like it must have felt as heavy as his had, and shown him a glimpse of eyes as green as the leaves in spring.

In a pained flash the image in his mind changed to that of Legolas, the last time he'd seen him – actually _seen_ him, not only been in his presence, and the innocent smile he feared must look quite different now.

There was a forge in his memory too, and a palace of ice – a wedding gown on his lap and three deadly shadows with pure white hair and jade eyes, ruby, onyx…

… and then there was Varalinde, floating like a creature trapped within her own ice before she struck.

The side of his face burned.

"My king!"

From his left the cry made him realise his hand had been subconsciously rising to touch that awful wound, and he changed the motion to re-straighten his hair at once. Geledar came out of a narrow tree-tunnel followed by four guards, and leapt up root and branch to his king's side, auburn hair fluttering beneath his helm in a small winter breeze that blew through the halls.

Thranduil kept walking in the same direction as he waited for the sub-commander of his army to catch up to him. Geledar did not keep him waiting long.

"What news from the outer patrols?" Thranduil asked him.

"No sightings of the spiders, my lord," Geledar informed him. "They have gone to their nests in the south for the winter already."

"One bright lining to this ever-darkening cloud," Thranduil muttered. "Although I had hoped to send expeditions to destroy as many of them as we could while they slept this winter."

"Eädrophon acquits himself well as Captain of the Guard then?" asked Aidhenian.

Thranduil detected no smirk on her lips but imagined there was one in her eyes, and a bitter one at that.

Geledar only nodded. "He does," he said simply.

Aidhenian did not let it lie. "I suppose Tauriel dwarf-friend will be one of those who misses out on a winter beneath the ice, and shall spend it under the mountain instead?"

Thranduil rolled his eyes. "Tauriel does not concern me, nor should she concern you – whatever her dealings with the dwarves."

Though his former Captain had not actually been given the title 'dwarf-friend' as far as he knew, for dwarves were stingy with that title, and he believed that as a rule she lived in Dale and not Erebor, he did not feel as though he had the responsibility to that… person, to remind Aidhenian of it.

"But do we think the witch will attack Dale or Erebor while we are imprisoned?" Geledar asked.

There was a question Thranduil did not like to think of either.

"She already has," Celedrion informed the others.

They exchanged looks behind his back.

"What do you mean?" Ilirieth asked.

Celedrion hesitated in answering as they came upon the entrance to a chamber; the secret council's room that had seen little use since the days of Oropher, with its tall arched doors of frosted glass engraved with vines parting at a wave of Thranduil's hand. Ilirieth waited until they were all inside, and Thranduil had come to the window to search for a set of eyes before she repeated her question, now with more trepidation.

"Dearest?" she asked softly. "Who has been attacked?"

With a deep breath Celedrion faced her head-on, with his hands on her shoulders, gently holding his wife steady.

"We learned of Varalinde's return from the dwarves," he told her.

She nodded. "That was what Thorin Oakenshield wished to speak of, then."

"Yes. The treasury of Erebor had been attacked, three of his people slain and others wounded by means of ice."

He paused. There was heavy tension in the air, and Thranduil guessed from the way she inhaled that Aidhenian had already realised what Celedrion would say next.

"She has taken the White Gems."

Ilirieth went very still in her husband's arms. Thranduil could sense her eyes going wide, and could well imagine what they held in them at that news.

It was at that point a set of temporary eyes came to his silent call in the form of a nuthatch that landed on his hand with a small twitter.

"Whether she has that necklace or not is no matter," he forced himself to say, guiding the bird inside. "It has no strategic value. There will be time later to contemplate the past, let us now prepare for what is to come."

Though by the sound of it it was a struggle, Ilirieth choked out, "Yes… cousin," and turned towards the map on the large oaken-stump table, as did Thranduil.

Then, with a deep breath, he began to feel his way into the nuthatch's eyes. As a living creature he perceived the bird differently to the lifeless objects in the room, as an animal he perceived it differently to the living trees all around them, yet as a creature he perceived it differently to his fellow elves. He sensed the blood rushing through it, the heartbeat, and every other movement of its muscles. He also sensed the thoughts that sputtered like tiny sparks within its head, and once he focussed on them he began to sense its emotions.

Of course, since he'd influenced them anyway they weren't surprising. The nuthatch was mildly confused as to why it was there, but it also seemed to recognise it was carrying out an important task. As Thranduil's senses fell in easier and easier with the bird's mind he prepared himself to receive its other input, and with a deep breath focussed its eyes.

Birds did not see as elves did. Often through their eyes Thranduil saw glowing patches of light in places where he was assured by others there were no lights, and all colours seemed very different, lines and shapes around them somewhat blurred. This was why he generally preferred to use his elks to read, only Atheon would not have fit in the Oak Council Chamber with much comfort.

It was probably for the best that seeing in this way was not as it was for elves, as it had been for him. It meant he did not become too attached to seeing through the eyes of others instead of making his own way through the world. This borrowed-sight was a process not all elves could learn, and indeed it had taken him years to master it. He had been well-motivated of course, for while his innate sense of the world around him and the guiding whispers of the trees saw him though both his kingdom and the world beyond to the degree that if anything relying on that sense had actually improved his skill in battle… he still could not read without eyes.

And his own were broken.

His breath caught in his throat when he remembered that, because that too had had Varalinde's hand in coming to pass, even if she herself had not been the one to blind him.

Then he forced that feeling away, and concentrated on the map before him; on the circles that marked successive boundaries of Varalinde's ice-skies in the past, and not on a few glowing patches he knew from experience could not be seen by his companions.

"We must determine some way of balancing our response to what we think most probable with what we think worst possible." He tapped the smallest of the circles on the map. "The smaller the area she covers, the more power she can pour into making the spell last and the fewer resources become available to us for the duration. But she cannot make it too small or it will shatter upon our own barriers and she's unlikely to have the strength to try again this winter."

Ilirieth frowned beside him. "It will be difficult to anticipate where the boundary of her attack will fall, especially when we don't know what state she is in. Were you able to interrogate any witnesses?"

Thranduil snorted, and let Celedrion answer that one.

"I am not sure the King under the Mountain would have liked that," he said. "With the jewels stolen he had assumed our own king was the culprit, and his wroth was fierce."

"His wroth was bluster and foolishness," Thranduil corrected, while Aidhenian chuckled darkly at the thought. "Even if we had had access to the surviving witnesses I doubt they would have noticed anything useful."

His cousin's attention had already turned back to the map.

"Long ago, Uncle Oropher had me study these to try and anticipate Varalinde's attacks," she said thoughtfully. "But that person never followed a logical plan of attack. We know the palace will be the epicentre: if her emotions are under control the boundary will be equidistant from that point." She drew her finger in a circle around an area of the map that overlapped a few of those drawn on already. "This area, at a guess."

"Should we not see that a wider area is warned though?" asked Celedrion. He meant the wildlife rather than their people, probably imagining their being warned went without saying, and Aidhenian answered him.

"That, my dear, is what I believe the King meant by balancing worst possible with most probable. We may not have the time or resources to alert even all of our own more distant outposts."

They would if Thranduil could help it, but he knew even then that there was all too much of a likelihood that ship had sailed already.

"The most immediate danger comes from being too close to the boundary when the ice-sky falls," he reminded them. "To wit, it is my desire that those who are not skilled in the bearing of arms be sent forth by nightfall tomorrow at the latest if they are to be sent forth, and brought within my halls if they are not."

Celedrion shook his head. "We will not have the time – "

"We have time," Thranduil insisted. He turned his and the nuthatch's eyes on Celedrion, then on Ilirieth, and regretted both moves because to _see_ the two of them through a bird's eyes was… disconcerting. Nonetheless, "Your wife has been keeping her contingency plans up-to-date, I trust?"

Ilirieth grimaced. "There had been little cause to reassess them for centuries before Erebor was taken back from the dragon," she informed him. "Now…" She sighed. "Forgive me, cousin. They have not been restructured to account for the losses suffered on that day."

That was annoying, but given how long they had gone since last Varalinde's evil had plagued them, and how short a time it had been since the Battle of Five Armies, he wasn't surprised.

"An oversight on your part, but understandable," he said. "You will have to adapt them as you go along. Keep me informed of all major personnel changes you need to make and I will approve them or not."

"Some that were to be sent hence may be forced to stay if there are not enough skilled warriors to escort them," Ilirieth warned.

Thranduil rubbed his brow with his free hand, skirting the burned part lightly. "Then we will have to prioritise. But do make sure to send the most irritating of our people away first, cousin – we may be trapped in here for many months."

Aidhenian tittered. "Only the most logical decisions for you, nephew, as we have all come to expect."

At that remark the other three glanced between her and their king with trepidation, but Thranduil had been waiting for an opportunity such as this since he had made his decision on the road back from Dale, and he smiled.

"Which reminds me, Lady Aidhenian." Her name he said slowly, drawing out the first syllable of her title. "I have a particular mission for you that will require you also to be outside the boundary when the attack comes."

She smirked back. "Oh do you, my king?"

"Yes, and for a noble cause it is. As I said before, Thorin Oakenshield's guards felt the force of Varalinde's power when she came to retrieve the jewels. Some who lived were seriously wounded, including the son of one of the members of his _noble_ Company, and I promised – or rather, Celedrion promised – that we would send a healer who had treated such wounds before to tend to his people."

All amusement fell away from Aidhenian in an instant, which brought much amusement to Thranduil – though little, he could tell, to anyone else.

"For this task I can think of no better candidate than the King's own kin," he told her. "I am certain the dwarves will be well honoured to receive the sister of an elf-king's uncle-by-marriage."

"Thranduil… " Celedrion started, but Ilirieth put a hand on his arm and stopped him.

Thranduil finished with, "You'll leave first thing in the morning. Findros and a companion of his choosing will accompany you – if it does not interfere too much with Ilirieth's preparations."

The silence before Ilirieth spoke seemed far longer than it was.

"I think it will not, my king," she said.

"Then Aidhenian will leave when the sun rises." His grin went wide enough that one eye threatened to tear up from the agony his face was in. "Only the best for our dear allies the dwarves."

Aidhenian remained still as stone for long moments afterwards, still but for the way her fingers clenched bit by bit into fists with impotent rage. At length, she took a deep breath and with calm words choked with bile beneath their surface asked,

"This is the King's command?"

She pointedly meant that she would not go unless Thranduil gave her no choice in the matter. And Aidhenian had been especially annoying ever since Legolas had left, so Thranduil enjoyed giving her no choice in the matter.

"So you _do_ remember who I am, my lady."

Geledar's eyes flickered to his sister's stony façade and then back, giving away nothing – but Aidhenian must have noticed the movement because she looked back to him. Thranduil could probably have told better what her expression was without the nuthatch, feeling the movement in her face through the air, but he guessed anyway that the contemplative furrow in her brow described a wondering as to whether or not Geledar would come to her aid if she asked it of him.

Experience or intuition told her no, and she looked back without saying anything to Geledar.

"Then I will do as the King tells me," she said plainly, tilting her head with begrudging obedience.

Thranduil echoed that gesture, and returned to the map to discuss the escape routes for those who would be sent away.

Their plans progressed without much further incident, though Aidhenian perhaps was not as vocal in their making as she otherwise might have been. Thranduil did not consider this an issue – Aidhenian was a full-grown elf, more than ten thousand years old. She would survive being sent into the proverbial corner for a few days, and he looked forward to hearing Thorin Oakenshield beg him to take her back.

Unsaid throughout their council, as the status of their supplies was catalogued, it was himself he worried for more. Varalinde was powerful; not so overwhelmingly that he was as an ant before her, but still more powerful than him by far. To an extent she was predictable; had he known she had broken free of her prison he would have anticipated her move to take back the necklace, and he knew almost beyond a shadow of a doubt she would raise the ice-sky within a very short period of time.

Likely she knew by now it was probably not going to kill him, or even any of his people, but she'd want to try and instil that fear in all of them – to announce her return to the world, as if there were very many left in it who'd care.

After winter was over – that was when she might try something new. He was reasonably sure she had not known of Legolas' birth before she'd been sealed, but she would learn of it soon, and likely that Lasniniel had left these shores as well. Thus she might have decided to try and find Legolas before she made whatever move for vengeance against Thranduil that would appear in her depraved mind.

For the moment Thranduil deemed Legolas was far enough away that he could wait until the thaw of spring to inform him of the threat – since the last thing he wanted was to potentially lead Varalinde right to him by sending him a warning now. The most recent news he'd heard was that his son was on the other side of the Misty Mountains, travelling with the human foster-son of Elrond Peredhel.

He would be safe for a season. Varalinde never ventured out too far south of the Grey Mountains without a specific goal in mind; certainly not in the warmer months. Nor was she fool enough to pose threat to Elrond without careful planning.

Legolas _would_ be safe for a season. Long-term strategy did not have to be discussed that night.

With that in mind he focused on those of his people who would not be so lucky; for never in the past had Varalinde's schemes left no casualty behind. Three dwarves had already paid with their lives, little as he cared about that. Their talk went on for hours, until the song of the trees informed them that the rosy light of dawn had broken over the horizon, and Thranduil dismissed his inner circle so the preparations of primary importance could be carried out, and Aidhenian could be carried off to her own mission.

"I will prepare to depart presently," Aidhenian told him, by that time the first thing she'd said in over an hour. "Is there any message you wish for me to convey to the King under the Mountain?"

"Nothing in particular," Thranduil told her. The eyes of the nuthatch on his hand had become tired indeed, and he dissolved their connection peacefully. "Use your own judgement as to what more you tell the dwarves of Varalinde. I do trust it above all others."

He said it sarcastically, but supposed he would not have said it at all if it had not been true.

"As you wish, my king." She turned to her brother. "Will you see me to my departure, Geledar?"

Her brother nodded.

"Ilirieth and I will begin strategizing as to who must be replaced," Celedrion announced. "It may not be as grim as we had feared."

He said it lightly, but all knew that would be because the Battle of Five Armies had left them with fewer mouths to feed.

Then Celedrion added, tentatively, "You should take what rest you can, cousin."

Thranduil laughed once, and gave Celedrion a look which said in no uncertain terms what he thought of that idea.

With a grimace Celedrion merely said, "My king," bent his head, and turned for the door.

Ilirieth lingered a moment. Then, with a sad demeanour Thranduil could sense from the other side of the chamber, she drew her hand from her heart towards him. Not feeling quite mercurial enough to reject such a small gesture, he returned it.

Then he added. "Send Galion to me before you begin your task."

His cousin and her husband then went for the door, but Aidhenian laughed bitterly at him, asking:

"Really, Thranduil. Are things so bleak that you would turn to drink away your sorrows already?"

_A conversation with you would drive any elf or mortal to drink_ , he did not say. Instead:

"Galion exists for other purposes than to bring me wine, Lady. I would give him the news of what has happened personally. Doubtless he will have heard some part of it by now, but the details… " he trailed off, shrugging.

Aidhenian made no more remarks. She bowed to him, then followed the other two out of the door, and Geledar went after.

And so he was alone.

With this reprieve from being part of the council, nothing distracted him from the pain his face was in, and shook his head to try and take his mind off it, then urged the nuthatch to leave the halls.

"Bring word to your kin," he told it. "This place will not be safe this winter. You must fly further south."

The bird understood at least the gist of his warning, though he sensed its unease at going south, where the shadow was weakened but not destroyed. Thranduil attempted to communicate an image of Radagast to it, to say it should seek his aid – and thus cease to be Thranduil's problem – and he thought the bird understood.

With a flutter of wings it disappeared into the morning light, and Thranduil was left to wait for Galion to arrive.

As he waited his attention wandered to the halls outside the chamber. Ilirieth and Celedrion had departed quickly, to discuss the day's events and what was to come as husband and wife, he had little doubt – but Aidhenian and Geledar lingered at the end of the corridor, their conversation just within his range of hearing.

He could not be certain if that was deliberate on Aidhenian's part or not.

"Thank you for speaking up for me, brother," Aidhenian was saying, sarcastically.

Geledar said nothing in reply. Aidhenian clicked her tongue.

"You coddle him, you know. You might try exerting some authority once in a while."

"I am not his father."

"No, you're not, yet you let him get away with as much as any blindly doting parent, and now I am to waste my time administering our people's sacred arts to those stunted creatures."

For a moment Thranduil thought Geledar was going to say nothing again. But after a long pause –

"He is right to send them aid. If it were up to me I would not send you, for your sake, but you are the most skilled of our healers and politically it is a sound move on his part."

"But that is not why he makes it – "

"I do not share your surety in that. Rationally speaking there is nothing wrong with you giving medicine to the dwarves."

"To beasts," spat Aidhenian, "who bled our family to the bones when the city fell."

"These dwarves did not."

There was a burst of bitter laughter from Aidhenian.

"You sound as though you read your words from a script, brother. Come, you despise the stunted ones as much as I do – more, I'd wager. You cannot be at ease with Thranduil's decision."

Again, Thranduil thought Geledar might have decided not to answer before he finally did.

"Perhaps I am at ease because it would mean you were not here when the ice-sky fell."

Thranduil and Aidhenian snorted fondly at the same time, and Thranduil was unashamed at this because he knew very well how alike he and Aidhenian could be. When they were not being unalike, of course.

Still, a part of him was touched by the concern of the brother for the sister. Geledar and Aidhenian were twins; Geledar the older by mere minutes, and Thranduil would not have been surprised to learn that the bond between the twins was the only thing that had kept either of them alive after their losses. For that reason he said 'a part' of him was touched, because another part of him was angered, and he supposed if he were to admit to such things he'd have said it was due to jealousy.

He had had a sister once. And brothers – three of them, though none so close to him as a twin, but he had had a father and a mother, a wife, a daughter, a nephew – and many more besides.

Now there was only Ilirieth who was actually of his blood: Ilirieth and Legolas, who was far away –  perhaps never to return, and if his previous experiences were anything to go by then he would not.

He listened to Geledar and Aidhenian walk away and wondered if it had been only to be expected.

Something… he had done something wrong, in regards to Legolas. He knew it, but it bothered him the he could not put his finger on exactly what the mistake had been. It had all come to a head with Tauriel, yes, but he knew it had been brewing before that. A slowly rotting tension. An unhappiness that was never spoken of.

Perhaps he should have been more forthcoming about Elodwë.

But then, he had been dreading the day his son would demand answers about her and her fate for millennia, certainly with enough dread to have noticed if he'd actually ever done so – and yet Legolas had never demanded a thing. There had been little inquiries, answered and forgotten almost easily – 'did this belong to Mother?' or 'was that before Mother died?' – requests of that sort alone. Legolas had never actually…

Ah, but his scar was burning when he thought of these things, so when the knock came to the door and he knew without checking that it was Galion, he brushed the thoughts of Legolas aside and prepared to do another deed that would leave a sour taste in his mouth.

"Enter," he told the other elf.

The doors opened in response to the King's voice. Galion came in without hesitation, but his shoulders were slumped and his head was inclined down with the weight of anguish rather than respect for Thranduil, turned away slightly as if he expected the next blow to be physical.

Thranduil sighed.

"How much have you heard?" he asked.

Galion flinched.

"My lord…" he replied hoarsely, stuttering so that every word took an age. "That Va – that _she_ has been freed from her prison and… and… and that she would resume her… her…"

"Yes," said Thranduil, cutting short that pathetic response before it got too painful for both of them. He turned away from the window entirely and motioned for the other elf to sit on the oak stump next to where the maps had been rolled up. "Varalinde has been awoken."

The sound of a hitched breath filled the air. Thranduil's eyes narrowed.

"… and I expect all within my halls to greet this, and whatever comes with it, in a manner befitting of a subject of this realm."

Where others would have found this not-so-gentle order for poor Galion to get a hold of himself exceptionally unkind, _considering_ , Thranduil was under too much pressure to act with exceptional kindness at that moment.

He waited for his butler to breathe in and finally lift his head. Idly, he wondered if the other's eyes were red already.

"There is more, which I thought you should hear from me. We became aware of her awakening through meeting with the dwarves, whose treasury the witch assaulted a few days ago. Three of theirs were slain, but only one item was stolen – a necklace." He met Galion's eyes. "You know of what I speak."

For a moment Galion was confused, but only for a moment before he realised there had only ever been one necklace it could have been, and then his face twisted with horror, and yet more confusion.

"What? But… but how was… was _that_ in the treasury of the dwarves!? I thought… I mean I didn't think it would be kept after…"

"I am not entirely sure of the details," Thranduil told him with irritation. "Suffice it to say my father gave the entire collection of gems to dwarves to try and have them removed from the objects they'd been worked into." He snorted, adding bitterly, "As if that would have made a difference. But he was killed before whatever he'd had in mind could be achieved, and the dwarves no doubt saw that as reason to keep them. Eventually they found their way to Erebor, which I was only made aware of myself a few centuries ago."

Galion's eyes narrowed. "A few centuries? What – you mean _those_ were the gems our most recent quarrel with the dwarves was over?"

"What of it?" Thranduil asked, though he knew very well 'what of it'.

"But I thought they were spoils from Doriath that had somehow found their way from one group to another – !"

Although he had also known of this rumour, and appreciated why his people might have thought it to be the case, Thranduil couldn't stop himself from saying, "Don't be ridiculous," as he recalled the circumstances of Doriath.

" – I know many of the others thought the same – was that really what was fought over on the slopes of Erebor!?"

"It was," Thranduil said simply. "Or do you think I should have allowed the dwarves to keep it?"

He felt the disgust from Galion at that thought.

"No, but… do they know what they are?" Galion's voice grew in volume. "Did they, I mean – did they know exactly what they were keeping in their treasury!?"

Thranduil allowed a long silence to pass before he answered that question, for he had given himself several different answers over the years and in his heart knew well that each of them had probably been only what he'd wanted to believe the day he'd had the misfortune to be thinking about it; which had been far more days than he would have liked. At length he answered,

"… I doubt it. It has been three thousand years, or thereabouts." He snorted again. "But when I asked for their return before Smaug came, Thror demanded that he be paid more than they were ever worth for their return, and I have not forgotten how well such a situation worked out for Elu Thingol."

Galion looked up at him, wide-eyed.

"You think he would have actually – !?"

"He was far gone, by that point." Thranduil waved his hand dismissively. "It was not worth the lives of myself or my escort. Whatever the _sentimental value_."

He noted Galion's wince at having those gems described thus.

Then he noted the sudden intake of breath – the realisation, and he felt compelled to answer what he knew must have been going through Galion's mind, even if as King he should not have had such assurances required of him. In this case…

Well, in this case things were different. He allowed himself to relax a touch.

"Do not think I brazenly sacrificed the lives of our people for them five years ago either – for I would not have done so for them nor for any heirloom of our birthplace." His throat felt dry. "Initially I had gathered our forces in concern for the dragon possibly coming to the Wood. After that, aside from the need for the supply train for the men of Esgaroth, I thought I might as well give the dwarves a show of force that would hopefully cause even those stubborn fools to reconsider their idiocy. I expected only thirteen of them."

He paused, thinking that even if Dain Ironfoot had not come with his own forces Thorin would not have been swayed in the state he'd been in.

"Also, I was extremely… irritated, by what had happened."

Galion shifted uncomfortably at the implied reminder of his own part in that fiasco. Though Thranduil had to admit, he would not have expected Bilbo Baggins to have evaded even his least competent of subjects, which Galion was not, and that still bothered him far, far at the back of his mind.

After a long silence had passed, Galion finally broke the tension in the room by saying,

"Then, Varalinde will have that… thing."

"She's probably wearing it as we speak," said Thranduil.

In his head he remembered the starlight sparkling in the light of the forge, his eyes heavy with grief and exhaustion, guessing it would be one of the last sights he ever saw and not knowing how he could be so correct and yet be entirely wrong at the same time.

That white-haired dwarf swinging the string of jewels around his fingers, laughing at him.

_"Look, princeling… "_

His scar burned fiercer than before as a cold wind came in through the window.

"What are you going to do, my lord?" Galion asked him.

"Destroy her," he said casually, as it was the most obvious answer there was.

His old companion shrunk back, his lack of confidence apparent. How long had it been though, since the two of them and their company had scurried like rats from house to crumbling house along the streets of burning Doriath, searching for an escape? Galion had never been overly confident, and far less so since Gundabad.

And Thranduil didn't have the energy to take responsibility for that too.

"Well," he said, taking his own seat in a wooden ornately-backed chair on the opposite side of the room. "Now that we have that matter out of the way, you can pour us both some wine."

 

 

*~*~*

 

 


	7. Envoy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now back to Erebor, for your regularly scheduled angst.
> 
> In this chapter, Thranduil proves he sends only his most diplomatic of elves to his dear allies the dwarves, and Thorin responds as you'd probably expect.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

 

Oftentimes, back in the Shire before he'd been tall enough to lift the latch on the pantry door and help himself to the treats that had been supposed to be saved for days to come, Bilbo would miss his step while climbing trees, fall, and scratch himself up something awful on the way down. Or he would slip off the bank while playing by the river and find himself squealing in the water – never the deep water, for even as a faunt he hadn't been so bold, but for a hobbit any river was dangerous enough – and he would ruin his clothes and be stuck in bed with a cold for days. Or he would lose a contest between the other boys, or fail to find elves in the forest for the hundredth time, or somehow he would make a fool of himself when he had wanted to impress.

And the tears would come, and the wailing, and feet would be stamped upon the ground and invariably Bungo and Belladonna would look at each other with exasperation before his mother bundled him up into her arms and carried him away for soothing words and tending to bruises, and she would coo _'there, there, silly moppet,'_ into his ears, and kiss them, and tell him –

_"It will all seem better in the morning."_

Bilbo woke up in Erebor's infirmary, in a bed opposite from where Kili sat vigilantly at his mother's side, and before he saw his nephew-by-marriage he thought to himself that he hadn't remembered ever going to bed the night before – they'd made their way into the sick-room, and he remembered seeing Dori stand to attention on seeing Thorin, then nothing – just a whiteness creeping in from the edges of his vision and then this. Waking in this bed.

_It must have been a nightmare_ , he thought to himself. _That is why I feel so bone-tired._

"Bilbo!" cried Kili.

Then he realised where he was, and knew that it had been no nightmare.

He didn't know that it was morning, so far inside the mountain.

But it certainly was not 'all better'.

"Ki – "

"Get up, Bofur, Bilbo's awake!"

A sudden start next to him and he saw Bofur almost fall out of the chair he'd been dozing off in.

"What – what?" he looked around wildly, then fixed eyes on the hobbit. "Bilbo!"

Bilbo was…

… he was thinking.

… he was thinking that Roselin was gone.

"Thorin… " he wondered, speech feeling strange in his mouth. "Where – where's Thorin?"

"Uncle couldn't be persuaded to stay in the mountain – rode out about an hour after you lost consciousness," Kili told him; excitedly, but not in a happy sense. He paused to put Dis' hand back on her sleeping body and…

Yes, that was the last thing Bilbo remembered. Seeing Dis prone and pale on the bed, her head swathed in bandages, the bandages stained through a smatter with crimson.

Meaning that the news Nori had brought them on their road back from Dale had all been horribly real.

Kili was suddenly at his other side, continuing, "One rider had come back already, said that Bifur's party hadn't found anything yet in their search – but because we've had no word since, chances are they're on to something by now."

The young dwarf gripped his hand, still a little too tightly for a hobbit's comfort, and yet Bilbo only felt it enough to be a little more grounded by the contact. Kili's eyes were filled with hope and fear alike as he went on, frantically.

"You didn't see – I mean, you were unconscious so you couldn't have seen – but Uncle didn't want to leave you here, Bilbo. Not that he would have wanted to bring you out into danger, though I'm sure by now he knows your worth in the face of danger, and anyway he wouldn't want to be parted from you, but he _swore_ , Bilbo. He swore on the blood of Durin that he would find your daughter and bring her back to you."

That said, Kili nodded slightly, urging Bilbo silently to believe what he said, which he did, and to be inspired by it, which…

Well. It was not that he doubted Thorin's word. After the gold-sickness had claimed him five years ago he had seen and understood how much it had taken for Thorin to break his word, and known how unlikely it was to happen again when he had also seen the pain Thorin had been in once he'd realised what he'd done.

It was just that he hadn't really come to terms with what was happening.

Roselin couldn't have been kidnapped by elves, after all. They wouldn't know how to braid her hair properly. They wouldn't know the kind of foods she liked. They wouldn't know when she needed to be in the Mountain and when she needed a bit of sun.

Had they even remembered to take Boar-Axe with them, when they'd taken her? Roselin couldn't go anywhere without _him_. Dwarf children were not often so interested in stuffed toys, nor hobbit babes so possessive over theirs, but Bifur had given her the boar he himself had sewn and equipped with miniature wooden axe Bofur had carved at that birthday celebration they'd been laughing about earlier, and sometimes when she was really upset Boar-Axe was the only thing that could calm her down.

_She couldn't be without Boar-Axe, he thought to himself_. Thranduil will never get her to be quiet. _And what if she needs Thorin to sing her her lullaby – how will she sleep?_ He was sure the elves had lovely voices and all, but they were not her father, and…

And then he wondered why he'd been thinking such stupid things at all.

"Bilbo?" Bofur asked him gently. "Lad, are you all right?"

Bilbo looked to him, but words would not come out. He tried desperately to think of something to say, even if only so by speaking he could convince himself he was a part of this insane turn of events and do something about them, but he could not…

"I'll tell the attendant to get Oin," Kili said gravely.

"No," Bilbo interjected, not thinking. "No, I… I'm not sick, or hurt, I just… I just am having trouble… Um."

Bofur's hand on his shoulder was unexpected, and the urge to fall weeping into his arms suddenly welled up like a tear.

"Hey, now, don't you of all people dare start losing your common sense," Bofur said, a hint of humour forced into his words. "Kili and I talked half the night about what the elf might be trying by this, but we couldn't come to a satisfying answer by the end of it – this needs you to give it your eye too."

The elf…

Right. The elf who had kidnapped his daughter. Or whose agents had; he couldn't deny that since they had been seen.

Although, since Thranduil himself had been in Dale, before both Bilbo and Thorin's very own eyes, he had not been kidnapping Roselin in Erebor, and so it was not undeniable that it had been _him_ to send the elves.

Only, Bilbo had spent quite some time watching from the shadows in the elven realm as the King had conducted his business, back when the Company had been his prisoners. He did not think there were many in Mirkwood who would act without direct order from Thranduil.

_Except Tauriel_ , he reminded himself, bringing that line of thought to a dead end.

He looked at Kili. "Has Tauriel been questioned yet?" he managed to say.

Kili grimaced and shook his head.

"I offered to do it, but Uncle said I'd be too soft on her. He wanted to do it himself when he got back, but since that would take too long he's asked Balin and Gloin to take care of it this morning."

Bilbo raised his eyebrows. "And Gloin won't be too harsh?" he asked. "Has there been any change in Gimli?"

With a glance at the other side of the room Kili shook his head, "None." Bilbo then remembered that Gimli had been given full use of the Royal infirmary before things had become so utterly unbelievable, and he too looked over to the opposite end of the hall.

He couldn't see much more of Gimli beneath the heavy covers than a ridge of curly red hair, but his mother sat at his side asleep, the dark circles under her eyes visible from across the room. It must have been the first time Sli had slept since the attack of the ice-witch.

If it _had_ been an ice-witch.

And with that thought, a feeling so strange and terrible came over Bilbo that for a moment he thought he might cry. It was a foreboding, paranoid kind of sensation, like shadows he couldn't see were crawling towards him from every direction; shadows full of dark and sharp-toothed little things that ate away at the very rock of the mountain and everything around it.

And without Thorin, he felt utterly alone in that place.

And worse, felt Roselin must have been feeling quite the same at that point.

He tried to make himself understand the truth again: Roselin, his daughter, had been kidnapped. Stolen. It wasn't… it had never been a fear of his for he had never heard of such a thing, or never heard of such a thing within the Shire, he supposed, which he supposed made him a fool for not considering it.

Only, the dwarves had all been so happy when she'd been born. He'd lost count of the number of dwarrow he'd never met, let alone those he'd known well by that point, kneeling before her at her birth with loud and clearly heartfelt oaths to fall on their own blades ere they let harm befall a single hair on the head of the princess. Roselin had seemed so much _more_ safe than a baby in the Shire might have, he'd thought.

He'd been a fool. He'd known a dragon had killed hundreds of dwarrow children in this Mountain before he'd ever set eyes on it. He'd been an absolute fool.

A desperate sob rose up from his lips, and he silently plead once again for Thorin to return, and bring their daughter with him.

"Bilbo," Kili said to him, soft and saddened. "Bilbo, you mustn't give up hope – Uncle swore to bring her back just like he swore to retake Erebor: and against all the odds, here we are!"

Kili's grin prompted a moment's smile from Bilbo he could not control.

"Aye, lad," Bofur added. "Now's not the time for tears."

They were right, of course – whatever Bilbo felt about it his tears would be no use to Roselin, at least not where her captors could not see and perhaps be swayed by them.

Now was the time to think – for cunning was supposed to be his strong suit.

"He – Thranduil, will not hurt her, will he?" he found himself asking all the same. "He would not do that, whatever else he might be capable of."

The other two were silent. Even in his own head Bilbo was elaborating, 'not on purpose, but he doesn't know how to care for a dwarrow-faunt', to which himself replied 'no one really does though, do they?'.

"Maybe," he said out loud, "maybe ask Balin to ask Tauriel if she ever told other elves about Roselin and how to best look after her? Whoever took her will want to look after her." His voice was becoming more confident now, though he didn't really feel that much more. "They'll hold her hostage because they want us to do something. That's what Thranduil must want, I mean. He wants Thorin to do something for him – I'd have said give him back the necklace but if so he couldn't have chosen a worse time to pull off this… this."

Bilbo laughed humourlessly, and Kili frowned; shifted closer to him.

"Maybe he's going to get Uncle to go after the necklace himself, so he doesn't have to?" he suggested. "I don't think he was too happy with the thought of having to face that ice-witch."

There was that too, and every time he thought of her there was a piercing feeling in his gut that made him as uneasy as the shadows of Mirkwood once had.

These two events, the assault on the treasury and the kidnapping of his child, they both seemed to have Thranduil at the heart of them, yet although on their own they seemed to make at least some kind of sense when looked at side by side Bilbo just… couldn't seem to fit them together.

"Something isn't right," he said distantly. When he saw Kili and Bofur look at each other with worry that he'd said something so obvious he shook his head. "I don't mean – I don't mean what we already know, but that there's more we don't than we realise, if you see what I mean?"

From his frown, Kili didn't, but Bofur sat back with a more pensive look.

"You think someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes in this?" he asked.

Bilbo's head kept shaking, even though that was exactly what he meant. "I meant it feels like the way we're responding to all this… that it may be exactly what someone is trying to get us to do. I don't know – if they wanted to lure Thorin into a trap – "

With little more warning than the clanking of footsteps outside the door and a the turn of a heavy lock, Bilbo found himself interrupted as someone suddenly entered the infirmary. That he hadn't heard the typically noisy dwarf a mile off as he normally would have was telling.

Dwarves, rather, for it was both Gloin and Balin who swept into the room. The noise startled Sli awake, and her eyes found her husband's with frail hope.

Kili was the one to greet them.

"Cousins!" he cried. After a moment to remember where it was they would have just come from, his eyes widened and he slid off the bed to approach them. "Did you – have you spoken with Tauriel!?"

Gloin growled and shook his head, but not in a 'no'; rather in exasperation. Balin sighed.

"Aye, laddie. I'm afraid it wasn't much more use than we'd thought before, if she knew about it she put a pretty convincing show on to try and prove she didn't."

"And I for one," Gloin snapped, "am not inclined to believe her just because she started _crying_."

"Cry – you didn't hurt her, did you?" Kili asked anxiously.

"Of course not," Gloin grumbled back, then turned to his wife, who was rising out of her chair to come to his side. "My treasure. How is the lad?"

Sli wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, while Gloin looked over to his still-unconscious son.

"He's not woken since I made him sleep after Dis was brought here."

Oin announced his presence with these words, enter the room from the other side – through the door that lead to the dispensary. His arms were full of bottles of herbs and powders which he set by on the table just beside that door before he turned to Bilbo.

"You're awake, lad – that's good. Brother, did you remember to ask the she-elf if she had any advice about Gimli's arm?"

"Well, what else were we questioning her about?" Gloin barked, petting Sli's hair gently. "It wasn't like an elf would give a straight answer even if they wanted to!"

Bilbo sighed, having no time for the regular dwarf pre-getting-to-the-point rant about elves. "What did she say though?" he asked.

Balin shook his head. "Only that she had no knowledge that this would happen, could not believe it had, could not believe Thranduil would do such a thing – "

Gloin's sharp laugh cut him off, but it was Kili who took that opportunity to inform them, "Bilbo isn't too sure about that one either."

_Thanks, Kili,_ Bilbo thought to himself, eyes closing momentarily. He had little doubt how Gloin would react to that idea, and so even though Kili wasn't exactly wrong in what he said he clarified quickly,

"That's not… that's not quite what I meant. What I said was that these two things happening at the same time don't make sense. I don't think they're a coincidence, but I can't see why Thranduil would leave two days between them either. Nor can I think of why he would… why he'd take Roselin if not to compel Thorin to give him the gems, so maybe he was telling the truth about that, but then how could he have arranged a kidnapping before we even got back from Dale?!"

He could barely breathe by the time he was finished. Bofur's hand rubbed his back soothingly as he gasped in air to try and hold his tears back, and he was glad for it, for he needed to finish this.

"What I'm saying is… there's a lot that doesn't make sense if you think about it for a moment, and I'm afraid that if we jump into things, if we react in the way that seems best without thinking, that we may be falling into someone's trap; Thranduil's, the ice-witch, I don't know who. But there's a trick going on here." He looked up to Balin's eyes. "When is Thorin due back?"

The idea that Thorin may have been lead out into an ambush must have then occurred to Balin, for he answered not Bilbo's question, but –

"Dwalin is with him, laddie, and they'll have met up with Bifur and have dozens of well-trained dwarrow at their side besides. Unless the elf-king is bringing his whole army over from the forest – "

"No, I wouldn't think that was it," Bilbo said. "Otherwise why bother infiltrating the Mountain to take Roselin when they could have just infiltrated to assassinate Thorin?"

There was a long pause, and after a while Bilbo realised that not all had taken this pause to try and think of an answer to his question – he could tell by the look on Balin's saddened face.

"… Bilbo," he said, slowly and consolingly enough the Bilbo had a good idea of what was to come next. "Perhaps you should rest up for now. Thorin will be back soon, of that I have no doubt – "

"You can't mean it, Balin!" Although the sentiment was Bilbo's it was Kili who expressed it at that moment, with a lot more fervour than Bilbo might have. "How can you expect Bilbo to do nothing when they have our princess – his daughter – and no one knows – !?"

"Can someone please answer my question about the medicine for my nephew!" Oin thundered suddenly, slamming the last bottle down on the table. "I don't know if any of you noticed, but this is an infirmary, not a council chamber, and if you're not sick or wounded, and you're not here to talk matters of healing, then you don't belong here at all!"

Kili hung his head, and Bilbo wasn't without shame for bringing all this into the room where Dis and Gimli were ailing. Come to think of it, it had been awfully silly of him to faint right when everyone needed him to be on top of his game, so to speak, and no use at all to Roselin.

The thought of remaining on top of his game honestly made him want to cry again, but he dug his nails into the palms of his hands and began taking deeper breaths to get a hold of himself. _Focus_ , he told himself. _She needs you. He needs you. They all need you._

Balin had raised his hands in a placating manner as Oin had been admonishing them all and on the completion of his rant stepped forward.

"Oin, the elf offered to take a look at the lad, but your brother would not have it, and what's more even she said she was too young to have seen the power of the ice-witch herself."

"Hah," Gloin said, at the mention of the ice-witch, but Bilbo still remembered the look on Thranduil's face back in the meeting-hall in Dale, and could not help but still believe there really was a Varalinde, and that she had truly hurt the elf-king in some way.

_Thranduil,_ he thought, not really knowing how to feel about the elf while so many questions yet remained. _What are you_ doing?

"She didn't know how much use she'd be," Balin finished sadly.

And Tauriel – could she have been complicit in this? Thorin may have had few doubts, but Bilbo was more inclined to believe her; after all she'd done for them. It didn't make sense that Thranduil would have set up some long game where he faked a falling-out with his Captain in order for her to gather information that Bilbo couldn't even be sure she'd have known, to kidnap a child Thranduil couldn't have known five years ago would exist, only to abandon his spy to her fate right afterwards. And why wouldn't Tauriel have simply made her own escape as soon as the deed was done, if she'd been in on it?

"Be that as it may," said Oin, "I for one would rather she at least had a look at the damage, for an arm that had been encased in ice I could treat; an arm encased in magic ice?" he sighed.

"Is it still growing back?" Bofur asked.

Sli pulled slightly away from Gloin so she could shake her head. "Mm-mm," she said. "I checked it no more than a few hours ago and it was clear as it has been since last night, but he still seemed to be in pain and the arm is still freezing to the touch!" her last word was a sob.

"Yet it is not going black as one would expect from frostbite," muttered Oin. "Thirs has come down with a fever since we took the leg, but I don't think that's the reason for the fever. There's no sign of infection at the amputation site, and I think it's part of this witch's curse."

"Will the same thing happen to Gimli?" asked Kili, worriedly.

"It may yet," Oin sighed.

As they'd talked, Gloin had gone to his son's side and shifted the blankets wrapping his arm aside, gently as Bilbo had ever seen the cantankerous dwarf perform any action. What he saw made him hiss and cover Gimli's arm with his hands.

"There's another patch on his forearm, like the others!" he cried to his brother.

Oin hastened over, and Bilbo shut his eyes, drawing his knees up to his chest. One of the ways even a layman could tell the ice that had been used to attack the dwarves came from no natural cause was the way it continued to grow back after being chipped away. That and it acted as no regular ice did – turned the flesh neither red nor black, yet it caused the same pain, and with Thirs had made his left leg brittle throughout, so that when it had been removed all but the part nearest to the amputation site had crumbled.

Gimli had been reached faster than Thirs, and the ice around his arm had not been so thick, but that it was creeping back even now when they thought for sure they'd melted off enough for the magic to fade seemed to leave them no alternative – they needed an elvish healer, or he would lose the arm.

Possibly his life, if things with Thirs did not improve, and Gimli was to travel down the same road. Bilbo made his decision.

"Bring Tauriel up here, under guard," he said. He was amazed at how calm his voice sounded.

As for the others, all save for Gloin seemed glad that someone had at least made some decision, and though Gloin cried in protest, "But we can't risk it, Bilbo!" all could see he was not confident in it.

Kili sighed. "It will be my brother's decision, and I don't know if – "

That was when running footsteps began echoing off the stone walls beyond, and all eyes went to the door, even Oin's when he saw where the heads of the others were turning, and Gloin hissed and swung his fist exclaiming,

"Durin's beard – is there no end to this madness!"

"Hush now," said Balin quickly, "It might be good news."

It sounded as though it might have been a chore for him to hope so much, but Bilbo hoped. Bilbo hoped against hope they'd bring news that Thorin had recovered Roselin already, and it had all been a big misunderstanding and there would be no war with Thranduil or anything of that nature.

When Bombur's Uril came bursting in through the doors Bilbo considered his hopes dashed before the young dwarf even spoke. His face was fraught with anxious excitement.

"Lord Balin!" he cried. "Lord Balin, the King and his riders are returning; they've captured some of the elves!"

Bilbo's heart lurched because he very much doubted that any elf who'd had anything to do with what had happened would have let themselves be captured by dwarrow scouting parties. Too quickly would they have slipped back into their enchanted wood, behind the protection of those terrible illusions.

In an instant he had the feeling something very bad was about to happen, if he could not prevent it, and he forced himself out of the bed and onto trembling legs. Bofur hastened around the end of the bed to hold him steady, which Bilbo was glad for, while the others were looking at each other with eyes that begged someone to say something to this bizarre turn of events.

"Lead us down there," Bilbo ordered, snapping the rest out of their surprise.

"You should rest, Bilbo – " Balin began, but Bilbo interrupted,

"Balin, I feel fine. I'm not going to lie around in a bed while our enemies…" he waved his arm searching for the term, "... _wreak havoc_ ; and I know that I had a turn last night but I'm better now, and if there is something I can do about any of this, I'll do it!"

Reluctantly, Balin nodded, and Bilbo was sure he'd even seen a hint of a smile above his white beard for half a moment.

Kili made a jerky motion as he went for the door but then shot a desperate look back to his mother in the next instant. Seeing this, Sli scurried forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll look after them both, Kili," she assured him softly.

They then wrapped arms around each other tightly, for Sli was Kili's father's sister, and she was as beloved of her nephews as Thorin was – and loved them no less in turn. As for Dis, Sli called her 'sister' freely, and when called back to Erebor after Smaug's death the two had entered the mountain together, each one clutching one of Sli's mother Ayli's arms to help the elderly dam walk the old stones.

"I'll stay too," Gloin announced. "I don't like to think what I'd do if I even laid eyes on another elf right now."

Oin nodded in approval, and there being no need for him to confirm he'd stay with the wounded asked, "Bring back any news you can as quick as you can," to which the others all agreed they would.

Dwarves, on average, were a little faster than hobbits when sprinting over short distances. Although they were often carrying far more weight in clothing and muscle, the strength in their legs was second to no other race in Middle Earth – which might have surprised an elf or two, Bilbo had sometimes thought, if elves and dwarves ever did things like friendly races with each other.

As they made their way to the throne room where Uril lead them though, he kept pace easily, finding that the harder he pushed his limbs to move the less they shook, and indeed it was Balin who lagged behind on occasion, with Kili and Uril out in front.

Uril was particularly swift, even for a dwarf, and surprisingly agile. He also kept up his pace much longer than the others when they started to flag – for Erebor was vast, its corridors long and linked with grand flights of stairs – so that by the time they reached the throne room where Fili paced anxiously, looking about as bad as Bilbo felt, Bilbo was out in front but for Uril.

Fili's eyes grew a little brighter above their heavy rings when he saw them approach, but only for a second. Then, seeing Bilbo, his guilt seemed mortifying, and Bilbo wished he had the time to embrace those unwarranted guilts away.

But he did not.

"Fee!" cried Kili, putting in a burst to get ahead of the others again and grasping his brother's shoulders to stop his own movement. "Fee, what's happened!?"

Fili shook his head. "I know no more than when I sent Uril to fetch you all. Thorin will be here soon, and there are elves with him, three of them – I haven't heard anything further."

"And won't 'til they arrive, I'd warrant," said Balin, gasping for breath.

That pronouncement left them with nothing more to do until Thorin arrived, and Bilbo could see that with such a space Fili was gearing himself up, turning towards him to deliver some ridiculously overblown apology that would probably involve the prince's own head on a platter before him – and possibly Kili's too, since they did everything together just about.

To be fair, it wasn't as though Bilbo would not have liked it much better if Fili had somehow been able to stop Roselin's abduction. But the part of him that dared feel as though he should take some of his frustration out on his nephew for that found the idea of the young dwarf suddenly knowing his cousin was about to be kidnapped and teleporting in to stop it so ludicrous that Bilbo was shaking his head even as Fili turned towards him.

"Don't even start, Fili," he said, voice cracking even as he tried to keep it strong and calm. "You have nothing to be ashamed of."

But Fili drew himself straight up and squared his shoulders, seeming almost offended by Bilbo's words instead of comforted, and he only said. "I was acting as King under the Mountain when it happened, Bilbo. It's my responsibility."

"Fee, you were literally miles away when – "

"Don't start, Kili."

"But brother – "

"Hush now, lads – both of you," said Balin, and over the southern edge of the walkway they could all see why; a small army was approaching from the direction of the main gate.

Crowned in steel he'd forged himself with a silver-leafed circlet inlaid around, Bilbo found Thorin instantly at the head of the procession, Dwalin on one side and what he guessed was Bifur on the other, beneath the helm. Some of the others he thought he knew by name as well, though being mostly helmeted as Bifur was he could not be sure; all walked with a kind of charge of fury about them, none among them looking even the slightest bit tired for the full day's search some had endured.

In their midst Bilbo caught a flash of blond hair – a darker blond than Thranduil's, so he would not be there to explain himself, but there were three elves and two in armour being hurried along by the dwarves.

Occasionally, the hilt of an axe would jerk out to jab at one of the elves, more often the two armoured guards, and when one did prod at the third elf – whom the other two tried to protect – they had no compunctions with stopping dead where they were and turning their head toward the offender, with what Bilbo imagined to be a glare of indignation though they were still too far away for him to see.

This elf was dressed in red silk embroidered with silver that glinted in the lights of Erebor, their hair was chestnut-brown and they were a little shorter than the other two. Just before the procession passed out of sight to the covered staircase the two guards managed to urge their companion along from where they'd stopped without causing a scene, and when that elf looked up Bilbo realised she was female.

In a way that was good; dwarrow regarded their own dams so greatly that their protective instincts normally extended to females of other races too – even elves.

Though after what had happened to the two princesses, and the two maids, that protective urge would be running thin in the case of elves, Bilbo feared.

"Are those Thranduil's people?" Uril asked – Bilbo had forgotten he'd probably not seen a Mirkwood elf in full armour, having not been at the Battle of Five Armies.

Balin nodded. "Aye. What they were doing wandering into dwarrow hands when all this is going on… I could not say."

All three of the younger dwarves glanced at him with sudden anxiety.

"You think this might be another trap?!" asked Kili.

"I'm saying I agree with Bilbo in one thing at least," Balin said, with a considering frown. "We must think hard before we act on anything that's happened."

"Maybe they've brought Thranduil's demands?" Bofur wondered out loud.

It was something Bilbo hadn't considered, though he hoped they had if it meant there might possibly be some kind of explanation for this nightmare.

Others did not feel the same way.

"Well, they'll be leaving unhappily in that case, Uncle," Uril declared darkly.

Darker words left Fili's lips.

"And a head shorter too, I wouldn't be surprised."

Kili put his arm on his brother's shoulder worriedly, but Fili shrugged him off and they were silent for the few moments it took for the party to reach the main walkway coming up towards the throne.

Thorin strode out towards them in a way Bilbo had not seen him look nor move since the eagle had flown him down from Ravenhill to the healers' tents five years ago. His eyes were wide beneath a heavy brow, the blue centres like the points of swords within them, while his long black hair flew out behind him with the force he exerted just by walking forwards, those few strands that had escaped from the main long plait of his beard likewise. The rest of his body looked so tightly wound that it might snap at any moment, and his footsteps seemed to echo far more so than any of the others did.

He softened slightly though, when he saw Bilbo; hesitated in all his rage and then approached him instead of the throne.

"Ghivashel," he breathed, wrapping his arms around his consort.

For a moment – if only for a moment – Bilbo felt well again.

There was no need though, to say there was still no news of Roselin. If there had been, they would have known in instantly.

"Forgive me," Thorin asked him throatily. "When Nori told us what happened my mind was so gripped by fear and anger that I forgot to see to you, my love."

Bilbo shook his head. "I don't mind if you forget about me entirely at the moment – only find her, please."

"Never," Thorin hissed. "I would never forget you. And our daughter _will_ be found and returned."

He said the last part louder, turning around to address all those gathered, and though he wished he could, Bilbo had not the heart to ask his husband not to make promises he couldn't keep – for his own sake if nothing else. 

As the King and his spouse had had their greeting, Dwalin had directed some of their soldiers to bring the elves before the throne, where they had been unceremoniously forced down to their knees. The two guards had steadied the she-elf between them, but she shook off their hands presently and got right back to her feet, hissing something in Sindarin that Bilbo didn't catch; apart from one word he'd been advised never to use in reference to dwarves, no matter how often certain Sindarin texts would.

The dwarrow did not attempt to force the she-elf to the ground again, though they remained close. She stepped forward with her head cocked in a way that made Bilbo think of Thranduil, and her eyes burning in a way that Thranduil's had never held the heat for. That fire found Thorin, and she folded her arms.

"Is this supposed to be a joke, Thorin Oakenshield?" she asked, with words dripping poison.

Thorin shot fire right back.

"Do I look like I'm in a joking mood, elf? You're here to answer for your King – " here the she-elf laughed nastily, " – and if you want to leave this mountain alive then answer you shall. Where is my daughter?"

If the elf feigned her bewilderment at that question, she feigned it well enough for Bilbo's heart to sink.

"Your… daughter?" she repeated.

"Do not pretend ignorance!" Thorin thundered at her. "Are you not here to deliver Thranduil's demands of us!? Or did he tell you to play this game for his own sick amusement?"

Not at all as moved by Thorin's tone as a normal person would have been, the she-elf laughed with disbelief.

"My King told me that two of your people had been assaulted by the ice-witch Varalinde," she replied. "He sent me here to apply what knowledge I have of healing such afflictions to their benefit, I know nothing of your daughter, unless _you_ are playing a sick game with _me_."

Her words went from amused to cool very quickly there, which had Bilbo realise this elf had shown perhaps more emotion in her interaction so far than he would normally see from an elf after an hour.

And he had completely forgotten Thranduil's aide Celedrion promising to send them a healer on his way out of Bard's palace. Probably because it made absolutely no sense for Thranduil to have actually done that, given what had happened.

Thorin too could not help but make a face at that nonsense. And he could not have seen an obvious explanation either, for he turned to Balin with a questioning look then that the old dwarf looked just as helpless to answer.

Even the regular soldiers, trained from a young age to be as unmovable as stone in the face of hardship, allowed a ripple of unease amongst themselves that the she-elf saw and frowned at, realising as much of any of them did that something inexplicable was happening.

She was the first to break the silence though.

"What? Has Varalinde not attacked your people after all?"

"Our people were attacked," Thorin growled, "By some creature that encased all or parts of them in an enchanted ice. The name 'Varalinde' we first heard from your King yesterday, our witnesses only described a she-elf clothed all in white."

"That would be Varalinde," said the she-elf before them, as though it were obvious. "An enemy of all our people, though I suppose by some standards she may still be called an elf. What that has to do with you taking us prisoner after we came here in friendship I do not know, nor anything about your daughter, unless you now say the ice-witch has caused some harm to her."

"There was no ice about the guards who were slain when our Princess was abducted. Only this."

Dwalin now inserted himself into the proceedings, and as he'd been closer he was able to get very close to the elf as he'd spoken – in a tone that threatened much. Confronted with him the she-elf recoiled, but when her kneeling guards again tried to urge her down where they could protect her, she batted them away.

When she was presented with that dreadful knife that had been left behind, she faltered.

"Where did you get that?" asked the elf on her right.

"You were just told where we got it!" Thorin roared, at which the elf flinched. "Found by the six bodies of our people who were slain yesterday as I sat holding conference with your wretched King! The six of our people who were slain in defence of my daughter; including two handmaids with no skill in the use of weapons!"

"Slain by the elves," Dwalin added, "who were seen fleeing the scene."

By now the she-elf – whose name Bilbo thought someone should really ask for at some point – was beginning to lose her indignation about the situation as it was replaced with fear. This was not, Bilbo guessed, just because of what was being laid before her, but also because of the very atmosphere of the room.

He too could tell the anger of the dwarves was growing; suspected his own might have been trailing along with theirs had he not had this feeling from the elf's reactions that she too had no idea what was going on. True, his dwarves considered all elves deceivers, and Bilbo had seen just how deceitful they could be when the illusions of Mirkwood had been leading them astray.

Still, the instinct he had here was a powerful one.

"Varalinde… also has another elf in her service," said the she-elf. "A man too, who may have been mistaken for one – "

Before Bilbo could seize on this as an explanation that would not require war, Fili asked,

"And do her servants often wear the garb of your people, as our witness specified?"

"Aye," said Thorin. "The garb of a people who, according to your King's story, she has not seen in three thousand years?"

"There's also the matter of the boy," Bifur interjected, walking out before the throne.

This was the first Bilbo had heard of any boy, and he looked questioningly to Thorin, who explained for his and the others' benefit.

"Bifur's party ran into a human boy as they were searching," he said, "who told them he'd seen four of Thranduil's elves riding south along the west bank of the river with a crying babe." He snorted. "We all know your people have no children of their own these days, and these ones threw a knife at him for his trouble when he made himself known."

The disbelief on the she-elf's face remained so convincing that Bilbo still did not think she'd been complicit in Roselin's kidnapping, but the last bit of news from Thorin seemed to leave no doubt about who was behind the deed.

A part of Bilbo tried to be relieved at this, because of all the foul creatures in the world who could have kidnapped his daughter, he considered Thranduil unlikeliest to harm her.

But then, yesterday he would have considered Thranduil unlikely to steal children in the first place.

As the elf tried visibly to come up with some kind of explanation for what she'd been shown, Bofur too had apparently shared Bilbo's appraisal of her likely part in the abduction, for he came forward to say.

"I don't suppose Thranduil might be wanting to get rid of _you_ for any reason, Miss?"

He asked cheerfully, but it was a valid question under the circumstances. The she-elf laughed once, humourlessly.

"Well, for one of his jokes this is going a _bit_ far," she said.

Then the blond guard said, "My lady," softly, but Bilbo heard reproach in his softness, and he decided that if no one else was going to do what needed to be done it might as well fall to him.

He cleared his throat.

"What's your name?" he asked, drawing all eyes towards himself, including those of the she-elf, which though a steely grey to Thranduil's blue had the same effect of scaring his into looking in a different direction. "If—if you don't mind me asking…" he finished weakly.

She left a long pause before she answered, but at length told him, "Aidhenian," and finally dropped her folded arms to brush the sleeves free of dust. "Daughter of Arundar of Doriath."

"And a 'lady', of the elves of Mirkwood?" Balin said, picking up on what the guard had called her. "Are you and the elf-king close, then?"

Aidhenian clicked her tongue and averted her gaze. "My brother Geledar was married to his uncle," she admitted, "though by the reckoning of your kind I suppose that was a long time ago."

"And you claim no knowledge of his abduction of my daughter," Thorin finished.

"No, nor will she, I reckon" Dwalin answered before Aidhenian could. "But then I, for one, do not pretend to guess at the strategies of elves."

Thorin's eyes narrowed.

"Then she may join her kinswoman in the dungeons until one of them feels like giving a more agreeable answer to my questions," he spat.

With a wave of his hand six of the soldiers swept forth and grabbed one arm each of the three elves, who struggled against their hold to no avail – dwarves, Bilbo had learned well, were without question the strongest in body of all the free peoples of Middle Earth.

However, their arms could not hold back the words of the elf.

"And if our King does not produce your daughter – which I doubt he can since I do not believe for a moment a single word of what you've said about the matter – what will you do? Pretend it to be an excuse to kill us? Do you think this mountain can protect you from the retribution of our people!?"

Bold steps brought Thorin inches away from the furious elf's face, and he leaned in close enough that Bilbo took a few steps in their direction too, though what use he might have been he wasn't sure.

"Do you think," Thorin countered, "that we will be hiding within the walls of this mountain for longer than it takes to mount a campaign?"

Aidhenian's eyes widened. "You can't be serious," she said contemptuously. "You stunted creatures could not hope to penetrate the protection of the forest."

"Oh," Thorin shot back ere she'd even finished her promise, "but you will find, Aidhenian, daughter of Alundar, that we _stunted creatures_ are more than ingenious enough in the ways of war to batter down any protection. And if not, then I'd prepare myself for a long wait if I were you. Thranduil has crowed to me before of his great patience, it may be that he doesn't miss you enough to retrieve you for quite some time."

Then with a nod, he turned away, and the guards began dragging the elves from the throne room.

Aidhenian called out one last time with, "You know nothing of our King, dwarf! His answer to this will be more terrible than can be understood by your small minds!"

One dwarf pulled her hard enough that she lost balance and dropped backwards with a cry of anger.

"You mortals have long since forgotten the true powers of the elves!" she cried out louder after that. "But it will be reminded to you, Thorin Oakenshield!"

Bilbo couldn't help but cringe at her words; the discord seeping into the very air of the mountain with Aidhenian's shouts stirring within him a feeling of familiarity – the terrible familiarity of the day of the Battle of Five Armies and the chaos, pain and death that had been wrought.

And they were no closer to returning Roselin safely to their arms. He felt like crying.

It was Kili who came up to Thorin's side to whisper, "Uncle, what about Gimli?" as the elves were dragged further and further away, but Thorin only shook his head.

"I will not risk it," he declared.

"But Uncle, he's gotten worse again – "

"And this one may make him worse still if we leave him in her care," Thorin pointed out in a hiss.

"But I don't see what profit there'd be for her to – "

"And I don't see what profit there is for any of them in any of this while they will not tell us, or even their own people apparently, what they think they're doing by all this!" Thorin snapped. "But the boy Bifur came across confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Thranduil's people stole my daughter."

His breath came hard and heavy.

"And he will answer for it."

For the second time Bilbo felt faint, like he should fall unconscious and hope that when he woke up everything would be better. But he was a full-grown hobbit, and shouldn't have had to remind himself of it.

It was his responsibility to try and figure out 'what profit' was gained by Thranduil's actions, or by any other who might have taken Roselin.

Yet his arms still itched to wrap themselves around her, and trembled at his sides. He couldn't stop thinking about how poorly her captors would be caring for her; elves who had no knowledge of her, who hadn't even taken her Boar-Axe with her to keep her company.

Then suddenly Thorin's hand was in his and squeezing tightly – his strength passing on to Bilbo.

"I will go to the infirmary," the dwarf said, gentler now, but firm. "Will you walk with me?"

Bilbo's head moved in more of a shiver than a nod, until Thorin held his hand tighter, and he managed to stand up straight and still.

"Always," he said.

Thorin did not reply but nodded back, and from there they went on their way.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 


	8. Threads

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually haven't written any of this in ages, but got a few hundred words down this afternoon while procrastinating my current NaNoWriMo project, and thought I'd post one of my old chapters in celebration.
> 
> In this chapter, minor characters are introduced, songs are sung, the 'seven dwarves' decide the tales of the dangers of Mirkwood are made up because... because it would really inconvenience them if they weren't, and Bard gets a headache.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Near the northern border of Greenwood the Great, where the wood was still green when in the green seasons, and mostly free from evil all year round, there lived four elven sisters in a cave at high elevation.

Each of them had been born under the rule of Oropher, in the second age – the offspring of a Sindar maiden who had followed the new elf-king from the sack of Sirion, and a Silvan hunter who had lived through most of the First Age in the same wood his daughters lived in to the day.

The sisters were orphaned now, and one short of the five they had once been, but though the memory of their lost loved ones never faded, the pain had turned to nostalgic remembrance and the tears back into laughter many centuries ago; particularly from the mischievous second sister, though _her_ boldness had not always served her well.

"Not two thirds as much as last year," the eldest announced that morning, dropping a basket of herbs upon their central table. "It will be a bitter winter."

Her youngest sister, who had been fletching arrows cross-legged on the table, leant over to view the haul, and the elder reached out to brush the younger's hair back so it would not fall in with the leaves.

"Chance-leaf, Uviel?" asked the younger sister. "I thought you said Athelas worked just as well."

Uviel clicked her tongue. "In _almost_ every circumstance, Uthiriel. I'd lecture you again if I thought you'd listen the five hundred and forty- _second_ time."

Uthiriel stuck her tongue out at her. Uviel tried not to roll her eyes.

Before either sister could annoy the other further they heard the sound of cheerful song coming up the path towards their home, and the familiar voice of another of their sisters.

Uinwen had a small woven bag stuffed to the brim with elderberries – although Uviel had sent her out to gather mushrooms – and practically skipped her way towards the sisters' home, not minding the chill in the air at all. Uviel and Uthiriel recognised Uinwen's own composition before they could even quite make out the words, and looks of exasperation were shared.

" _– to view the flowers fair._

_And when the treasure hoard they saw they all began to sing;_   
  
_'O gentle daffodil, such beauty – worthy of a King!_   
  
_The verdant leaves become her gown,_   
  
_and golden petals were her crown,_   
  
_The daughter of the Spring.'_

__  
But when the Spring Queen heard their voices singing with delight,  
  
_And saw their eyes upon the daffodils with awe ignite;_   
  
_Fair nature's heart was filled with dread,_   
  
_And in a bitter wind she said –_   
  
_'Remove her from thy sight – !'"_

  
At this point Uinwen dissolved into giggles and Uviel took the elderberries from her with a huff.

"I think that's enough singing for one day, sister."

"Ai, Uinwen," groaned Uthiriel, "did you start the day off in your cups or something?"

Uinwen straightened, clicking her tongue.

"Oh, Uthiriel, don't be a brat just because winter is upon us again."

"You were supposed to get the mushrooms for the stew," Uviel pointed out, pouring the contents of the bag into a jar.

"Udhinel agreed to swap mushroom-gathering for washing duty," Uinwen said with a shrug. "You know I hate getting dirt under my nails scrabbling around for those things."

"I know Udhinel is a pushover when it comes to swapping duties with you enough times that she does all the work and you do nothing," said Uviel, gravely. "If you still can't get used to living out here after two hundred years you know you can go back to Thranduil's halls at any time."

Pouting, Uinwen flung her arms around her older sister's shoulders from behind and leant her head against the back of her neck. Through their contact she felt Uviel's frustration, and beneath that her weariness, perhaps a tinge of guilt amongst that, and soon enough annoyance for knowing her sister felt all this without asking first. But then, Uinwen was an unusually tactile elf, even for one of the woods, so it was not as if she was not used to it.

"I'd miss you all too much," Uinwen told her, kissing the back of her head before she let go. Then she sighed. "And Thranduil would probably just find some other way to get rid of me. I could be joint-ambassador to the dwarves with Tauriel, and then I'd fall in love with the bushiest bearded of them all and succumb to the doom of Luthien." She feigned a swoon. "I can hear the songs they'd sing now."

Uthiriel snorted with laughter, and despite herself Uviel was having to bite her lower lip.

These days she no longer protested that Thranduil had not given Uviel this assignment simply because he'd known her sisters would go with her, and had wanted Uinwen out of his halls. She had never been entirely sure herself. Conversely, Uinwen had been – except in that that was indeed the case.

There was no way to prove it. The herbs that grew only along these cliff-faces needed to be maintained and collected throughout the year for their infirmaries, and Uviel was one of only a few qualified to do so.

But Uinwen also had… made that error.

"The bawdy tavern-chants, perhaps," she muttered.

"My husband's name… " Uinwen declared, "shall be Grog – son of Groan! Groan and one of Dain Ironfoot's war-pigs, for forbidden love begets forbidden love!"

Uthiriel laughed even harder. Uviel shook her head, and tried not to make the gesture as fond as it was. She wouldn't have even been entirely surprised if Uinwen _had_ married a dwarf; she knew very well the healing herbs inventoried that had mysteriously vanished the year the dragon came hadn't walked off on their own, and she'd had a very good idea of who'd taken them, and why – though it would have been contrary to the order of the King.

It had been a good thing Lady Aidhenian had never seen that inventory before Uviel had had the chance to redo it.

"Go back out and find Udhinel," she told Uinwen. "If you can't bear to get your precious hands dirty you can at least carry the basket back for her."

Grinning, Uinwen darted around her shoulder and plucked a handful of elderberries from the jar before running for the entrance to the cave.

Uviel hissed and swatted at her, but missed, and could only throw her hands up as the most annoying of her younger sisters disappeared back into the trees.

Without her around to scold, she turned her disapproving gaze on the still-sniggering youngest of their parents' brood. Uthiriel held her hands up innocently.

Uviel sighed.

"You see she doesn't mind _elderberries_ staining her hand," she observed.

Uthiriel shrugged. It was an unspoken rule among the sisters that they did not mention how motherly Uviel had become since their parents and eldest sister had perished, and that was a rule that had lasted for millennia.

"She probably won't be much use to Udhinel," she said. "She'll meet her a few minutes away at most. She should have been back ages ago anyway."

That casual observation had Uviel still, brow furrowing.

"I don't like for any of us to be out on our own when the cold comes," she said.

Uthiriel stopped fletching, and hugged her knees up to her chest.

The wind outside blew ever colder.

A deluge of decaying leaves came to the ground with each howl.

Grey clouds were beginning to peek in through the gaps in the branches of the trees.

It was still far away that Udhinel, third of the four sisters and fourth of the five they had been once began to make her way back up the trail towards the cave they lived in. She had been distracted by an anxious chord in the tree-song, whose notes she was more attuned to than most elves.

Not as attuned as some, of course. But enough to think she heard…

She heard…

A child?

A babe, in distress – far to the south?

It disturbed her, though by the sound of it, it was too far away for her to do much. Still, she lingered until a particularly violent gust of wind knocked her about so hard she was forced to take better stock of her more immediate surroundings.

With it, a few bright orange leaves fell into her hair, and when Udhinel looked up at the direction they'd come from she saw a glimpse of pale green eyes in the boughs above her.

…

…

Not twenty minutes later, Uinwen arrived in the same clearing to discover only a basket of mushrooms left abandoned on the forest floor.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

With a groan, Garig lifted his axe away from the skull of the fisherman at his feet and let the brains spill onto the shore of the lake. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Arim's wince; the way he turned his eyes away from the sight.

"What?" he snapped. "Did you want him to be witness to our company travelling into the forest?"

The darkness and the trees between it loomed ahead of them now, after a night fraught with near misses and a boat that had barely made it to their landing point, so much water had it taken on from the scrapes.

"You didn't have to do that, cousin," Arim argued. "By the time any word got from him to Thorin, we'd have been well into the trees, and by that time Dis may have woken up and told him all anyway."

Garig sneered and wiped his axe against the grey-brown tunic of the man. "I'm not taking any chances with the lives of my kin," he growled. Then he jerked his head towards the unfortunate witness to their landing. "This one probably didn't have more than a few years left in him anyway, his beard is already grey."

"And we can split his catch amongst ourselves now," added Darig, ever one to look on the bright side. "They do say not to eat the food in Mirkwood."

Rolling his eyes at yet another mention of the terrible danger of Mirkwood – for if elves had no problems living in it dwarrow, Garig deemed, would manage perfectly well – Garig checked over the corpse for valuables. There were none, though that was no surprise. Even after the rise in Esgaroth's fortunes in recent years, one could not rely on Men to be competent enough to acquire and carry any treasure worth taking.

He still gave the body an annoyed kick for being of no use and wasting so much time. He did not stop to see what the reaction of his companions would be to that move though – the man was only a man.

Still more annoying were the muffled cries coming from the chest. Cries soon to be un-muffled as Zini started fiddling with the lock.

"Hey!" Darig cried at him. "Can't we keep her in the chest as we go through the Wood?"

"She needs to eat!" Zini protested. "It's been hours since her last feed."

Agaf muttered darkly, "A full-blooded dwarrow would not cry so often with _hunger_."

Garig agreed. Of course, there'd never been a time he hadn't agreed that the half-breed was no suitable candidate for heir to the Mountain, only it was such a risk and an effort to go through all this for so little more than that.

_There'll be more than Grandmother who appreciates it when a true-born dwarrow inherits once Thorin's dead_ , he insisted inside his head, _and you're more than young enough to see that succession come to pass._

He glared at the cries coming from the chest Zini and Darig continued to argue over.

_Maybe it'll be sooner than that, if grief hurries him to his grave._

The thought pleased him. The arguing did not.

"Will you two both shut up and do as you're told!" he snapped. "We'll take her out of the chest when the shoreline is out of our sight, it won't kill her to be stuck in there another hour or so!"

Zini seemed put out, but with a pat on the shoulder from Arim he hoisted the chest onto his back, never complaining out loud.

Garig would have to keep an eye on that one though, he decided. Arim might have been a soft-hearted fool, but he was Garig's first cousin and fellow descendant of Tus, and he did not expect an active betrayal from _him_ at least. Zini on the other hand was only an apprentice; one who may at any time have thought that Thorin Oakenshield might give him more coin for turning in his companions than said companions would give him for carrying a box.

Then again, Zini also knew that Thorin was a dwarf, and about as likely to forgive one who took part in the kidnapping of his daughter as he was to propose marriage to the elf-king. Even if that kidnapper got cold feet.

Still, things were not desperate yet. Time would tell whether Garig would be given cause to discover if Zini would remain loyal to him when they were.

"You two," he barked at the thieves milling around by the boat. "Drag that body into the water where it won't be seen by all and sundry who come by this way, and then push the boats out after it!"

Neither of his companions looked pleased at the prospect of that task.

"What, wade out into that?" asked Hargim, the younger of the two. "It's cold as death!"

"My mattock's what's cold as death, you twit, and it'll be freezing you up from the inside if you think you can slack off for the same pay those that work will get," Garig promised him.

Hargim blanched, but Throgim, his uncle, just rolled his eyes and set to work plodding off to the corpse to get the messy bit done before the dunking. Of course, no sooner had Hargim capitulated and followed his uncle than Arim protested:

"But cousin, what if his kin never find the body? He won't be given proper burial."

_For Mahal's sake…_

"What, you think they were going to encase him in white marble beneath the Mountain?" Garig asked him. "They're Men, you fool, who cares what happens to their corpses? There's plenty down there that fell in on fire when the dragon came, he'll not want for company!"

Darig and Agaf both snickered and Garig saw a smirk on Throgim's lips, though Zini winced. And, as if staging a protest of her own at the treatment of the nosy bugger's body, the little half-breed squalled twice as loud inside her box a moment after.

Garig glared at the noisy chest and stalked over, giving it a good thump.

"And you'd better shut your mouth sooner or later, brat!" he called to her. "Or you'll be part of his company as well!"

Not caring for any of his companions' reactions to that promise, Garig turned towards the dark, forbidding trees and began to make his way into the forest.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Bard couldn't really say that if someone had told him five years prior that this would be his life, he'd have thought them insane, necessarily. These things happened, after all.

Men had killed dragons before him, and more terrible ones than Smaug – a hard thing to imagine though it was. Men had gone from nobodies to kings before too, and not all of them had had kingly ancestors to lend credence to their sudden rise to power. Men had entertained the kings of elves and dwarves before, and no doubt played their part and party in the affairs of those races – poor souls.

Of course, he wasn't sure that he wasn't the first Man to be asked by an elven king to babysit two baby elks before, but there also were more important things to focus on than the grey-white fauns Sigrid and Tilda cooed over in the corner.

Like the imminent war between his two closest neighbours and trading partners. His two neighbours and trading partners who also happened to be the people he'd have easily said he'd least like to be caught in the middle of during a battle.

He'd seen them both in battle, after all.

"There is no decision to be made," the elf before him insisted. "The dwarves are liars, and ridiculous ones at that. Our king has no more kidnapped their princess than he has turned her into one of those elks," he gestured with a wave of an elegant hand at the fauns.

The two dwarves on his right lurched forward aggressively, and Nori son of Rild spat –

"Your kin were seen!"

"By multiple witnesses!" added Bombur, son of Dagur. "A man as well as dwarves!"

The elf, Iluvar son of Feren, rolled his eyes and looked coolly at Bard, like he thought he was an idiot just for daring to entertain the thought that dwarves might be worth listening to.

"A single man may be as easily bought as any dwarf, and the King under the Mountain has more than enough gold to buy the priciest of Men," he said – speaking not untruthfully, but certainly not diplomatically either. "And now you tell us the Lady Aidhenian, our king's aunt-by-marriage, has been taken prisoner by dwarves when she had come to offer them aid."

"Aye, and we don't deny it, unlike you and yours," said Nori.

Iluvar kept looking at Bard when he answered. "We deny your accusations because they are false. Ever do the dwarves seek to blame our people for the problems they bring down on themselves, and I doubt this is any different. Bard Dragon-slayer, on behalf of Thranduil, King of the elves of the great wood, I beseech you pay no heed to these false creatures."

"False creatures!?" repeated Nori, bristling furiously. "We'll see you call me that again with no teeth behind those lying lips!"

For a split-second Bard thought he might have seen the tiniest of cracks in the elf's composure at that threat, but it passed quickly and before he let the situation devolve into another elf-dwarf shouting match (or dwarf shouting against elf sneering match, as it was in his experience), he called out,

"All right!" to stop their squabbling.

Knowing elves and dwarves, he considered himself fortunate it worked for more than a moment, giving him the time to ask Iluvar –

"What would you have me do?" then he turned, opening the question to the two dwarves as well. "Believe the word of one of you over the other for no reason? If either of you think that I'll make a snap decision when things have gotten this out of hand then you'll need to check your long memories again for a time you've ever seen me act so foolish in the past."

The elk faun nearest to him bleated as soon as he'd finished, and Bard liked to think that it meant someone was in agreement with him.

When he looked to the direction of the noise his eyes caught Sigrid's staring back at him anxiously, and he tried to give comfort with just a look.

"The deceit of elves should be reason enough," muttered Nori.

"And what of the deceit of dwarves?" Iluvar returned without hesitation.

Nori snarled. "Who was it who broke alliance with whom when the dragon invaded the Mountain and slaughtered our people!?"

"Who was it who proved unworthy of the sacrifice fighting a dragon would have garnered when they stole what rightfully belonged to our people?"

"Those gems were work we dwarves wrought that your King did not pay for!"

"A lie we elves have heard before," Iluvar said, and with far more coldness that his earlier dismissive remarks.

But by this time Bard had had enough again, and said so.

"Enough!"

He waited another moment, looked from one side to the other and took a deep breath.

"Five years ago this very moon all three of our peoples fought and died together to defend these lands," he reminded them. "I'd not have _those_ sacrifices spat on by allowing us to fight amongst ourselves so easily now."

With that brought up he finally saw an inch's worth of retreat from each side, and was relieved until he realised he had no idea where to go from there.

According to the dwarves it was now four days since Princess Roselin had been taken. Two days ago his own men had met with the Lady Aidhenian at the edge of the forest to escort her through the city on her way to the Mountain when the party lead by Thorin himself had run into them, and demanded to be given custody of the elves. Being only a small guard, who had also seen dwarves fight at the Battle of Five Armies and were now faced with four-to-one odds against them, the human soldiers had wisely stood aside and then run straight to Bard to tell him the news.

Before Bard had been able to send a message detailing these events to Thranduil, Nori and Bombur had arrived, bearing Thorin's official notification of their side of the story, along with the demand that Bard renounce his alliance with the Mirkwood elves and commit himself to join Thorin in war against them in recognition of the righteousness of their cause.

Now, Bard couldn't deny that if what Thorin said was true, then his cause was indeed righteous – he had children of his own, after all. But to take it at face value that Thranduil would go around kidnapping babies for seemingly no reason? The elf may have been hard to understand, but Bard had liked to think he'd at least understood him enough to know whether he was the type to do that!

And yet, would Thorin have just made such an accusation up out of nowhere? Bard had his problems with the dwarf-king too; setting a dragon upon his town had not impressed him all that much, but he did not think Thorin would risk the lives of his kin in war against Thranduil – who they'd also both seen on the battlefield – unless there was some, real cause.

Unless, of course, he'd gone insane again. There was something he didn't want to have to deal with.

Clutching at straws, he thought of the meeting almost a week past, and how that had been semi-resolved.

"Is there no chance this is another… ruse, of that ice-witch's – to set you against each other?"

"Not unless their ice-witch is outsourcing to elves who dress in Thranduil's colours," said Nori.

Bard almost hoped that was possible, but from the look on Iluvar's face he knew it wasn't. He threw his arms up in the air.

"Then I don't know what to tell you," he said. And he wouldn't, until he could sort out some things with his own eyes, prompting his next words. "I will go to Thranduil's halls and speak to him myself. I won't have the two of you spilling the blood of each other's people if I can help it, and I'll see with my own eyes if he's taken the Princess."

"That would not be wise," said Iluvar, fast enough that Bard was immediately put in a suspicious frame of mind. It didn't help that the elf averted his eyes when Bard tried to glean his purpose from them.

Bombur snorted. "Aye, I can't recommend the elf-king's halls as a visitor's destination myself."

"That is not what I meant," said Iluvar. "Only that Varalinde has awoken, and we doubt her ill intentions towards our people have changed. It will be dangerous enough when the ice-sky falls for the elves within our halls, I do not think our King would like to risk a mortal being exposed to her power."

Recognising that term, if vaguely, Bard frowned.

"What is this 'ice-sky'?" he asked. "Thranduil was somewhat reluctant to – "

"My lord!"

 One shout from a young guardsman and Bard just knew that everything was about to be turned on its heel once more. It had been that kind of week.

Ranulf, son of Ranard, a mousy-haired lad born the year before Bain, was still trying not to trip over his long cloak as he ran up the stairs into the hall. He stopped suddenly when he saw Bard's guests; his people were still unused to dwarves and he doubted they'd ever be used to elves. Ranulf looked like he didn't know which race to be more intimidated by, and Bard supposed he couldn't blame him.

Apart from Bard himself there were few men in Dale or Esgaroth who could contend with elves or dwarves. Men, on average, were simply neither as strong nor as fast as either of them, never mind not living half as long, and five years ago only simple fisherman had called these lands their home. More had come, since the death of Smaug, yet Bard hardly had an elite fighting force at his back.

"My lord," the youth said eventually, dropping to one knee. "Tanner sent me to say the elf-king is approaching!"

Bard winced. By the Valar, he was an _idiot_.

"Thranduil is coming!?" cried Bombur.

Rubbing his brow, Bard sighed and told him, "No, Sir Dwarf, he means Lord Elrond – who, Ranulf, is not technically a King." This fiasco was no excuse to have forgotten the Lord of Rivendell was due to arrive any day. "Does he ride?"

Ranulf shook his head. "He comes by boat, my lord. Tanner said there was three of them, coming up from the south."

"Three elves or three boats?" Bard asked, rolling his eyes.

"Uh, boats, my lord. Two dozen elves, he said, or thereabouts."

Well, at least if they were travelling by boat then Thorin probably wouldn't be able to capture them; the dwarves did not like vessels of the water overly much. Then again, in the mood he imagined the dwarf-king was in he may have just shot the Lord from the shore when he saw him coming.

If he did end up doing such a thing, then Bard supposed he'd at least be able to confirm Thorin _had_ gone insane again.

"Elrond?" Nori repeated. "What's _he_ doing here?"

"A state visit," said Bard, waving his hand.

Members of the White Council – which in the past had generally meant 'Gandalf' – had been coming to the north every anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies to check on the stability of the region. This time Lord Elrond had opted to visit instead, apparently wanting very much to introduce Bard to a young ward of his who was to become Chieftain of the Dunedain.

He supposed they would be another factor he'd have to worry about, if their boy-chief was unknowingly sailing into danger.

_Thorin will recognise Elrond's standard_ , he told himself, trying to remain calm. _He knows Elrond is not Thranduil. He won't do anything rash._

A moment later and Bard felt like dropping his head into his hands. Thorin Oakenshield refrain from acting rashly? It wasn't impossible, but he wouldn't have bet all he owned on it.

Meanwhile Iluvar cocked his head with interest.

"I did not know the _Peredhel_ was expected," he said. "Perhaps he will bring some wisdom to this nonsense."

A good point, which would have been received better had it not been said so haughtily.

"Perhaps he'll lend his own elves to our cause," returned Bombur, which surprised Bard until he remembered that Elrond had seen Roselin safely delivered into the world, and the dwarves at least had some respect for him for that.

Iluvar gave another magnificently subdued eye-roll. Bard wondered idly if he had been sent to him by Thranduil in anticipation of the need for such _diplomacy_ , as he knew full well there were elves in Mirkwood with far more tact than this one. Interestingly, Iluvar did not protest the dwarf's suggestion that Elrond would side with Thorin against his woodland kin, and Bard remembered he had sensed… tension, between Elrond and Thranduil at the princess' birthday celebrations three years ago.

In fact, he remembered that it was pretty much only himself that Thranduil _hadn't_ seemed tense with. Thorin, of course, had been none too pleased to see the elf-king show up – though Bard thought he probably would have been even more put off if Thranduil had snubbed his invitation – him and every other dwarf, especially Dain Ironfoot. Then there had been Tauriel, and Gandalf, and another elf that Bard was pretty sure had been part of Thranduil's own entourage rather than Elrond's, along with all of Elrond's entourage as well… he sometimes wondered why the other king seemed to like _him_ so much.

Or tolerate him, at least. Perhaps that was another part of the reason he wanted the dwarves' tale to be false – that Thranduil's apparent esteem of him made Bard inclined to hold him in high esteem in turn.

That and the aid Thranduil had given him at the battle of Five Armies, whatever his protestations of not actually caring what happened to his people. Actions belied words, when the two were incongruous. Bringing food and supplies to the survivors of Smaug's destruction of Laketown had not aided Thranduil in his feud with the dwarves in the least, not when the men Bard had brought with him to fight had been so blatantly outclassed by both elf and dwarf armies.

No. He didn't believe the dwarves were lying, necessarily, but neither did he think their story the truth of what had happened.

He prayed Elrond would agree with him the whole way he travelled to the dock to greet him.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

 


	9. Disturbance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as usual, I suck...
> 
> ...
> 
> ... Yeah, that pretty much sums that up. Anyway, here's some more of this. In this chapter, Thranduil stands around doing nothing, Legolas states the obvious, and the now-six-dwarves mount their challenge to Varalinde over who is the true villain of this fanfic. Or at least Garig does.
> 
> ... on which note, some of you may want to pay special attention to the 'harmful to minors' tag during this episode. Specification in End Notes.*

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

The trees would have been losing their autumn colours by now, Thranduil supposed. He cast his mind back to the days in which he'd see the wood at this time of year long ago, and tried to picture what the colour of the leaves around him were in that very moment. But trees did not work to a specific schedule, would not follow the same pattern year by year like the sun and moon. He could only guess, alone as he was.

Well, not entirely alone – but it would have been rude to take Atheon's eyes simply to look at the scenery.

"You and your mate should go further north as well, my friend," he said to the huge beast. "Varalinde would have no qualms turning you into a frozen decoration for her home, and it will not be easy to stay here when she makes her move."

Atheon, of course, did not understand exactly what his rider was saying. He understood the concept of imminent hardship Thranduil had imparted to him, and the threat of an enemy – understood his youngest children had been sent away for their safety because of this – but he did not possess the capability to think rationally about why Thranduil suggested that he flee.

This elk was not an ordinary animal who would have fled at a mere suggestion either, after all. In fact, Thranduil felt there was some indignation as well as confusion from the creature in response to his advice.

The headbutt against his chest seemed to confirm that.

"Fine," he said. "Stay here, you silly thing. We may have to resort to eating you if the ice-sky lasts too long anyway."

His hand ran over the long ear of the elk, and he felt from it a sense of relief. Only then did it occur that the animal might have had no concept of sending a seasoned fighter such as itself away for sentimental reasons, and may have thought his actions more that of one doing what animals normally were doing when they tried to be on their own – slinking off to die.

Thranduil almost snorted. Even an elk should have known him better than that.

This elk nuzzled against the right side of his face presently – the pain that had been growing worse on the other side in recent days was temporarily reprieved here – but only for a moment before the great antlers suddenly lifted. Through Atheon, Thranduil sensed something in the forest.

If he could only have been more specific about that 'something', it might have meant more than it did.

Greenwood the Great had accepted Thranduil as its King even as its elves had, almost three thousand years prior, but Thranduil had always been more attuned to the animal life within it than the tree-song that whispered to its cohabitants now. That was not to say he was at odds with or deaf to the trees of his wood; far from it – for if it had been so he would not have been able to perceive the world around him as well as he could, being deprived of his sight. Rather it meant that he did not always _understand_ their voices as well as he could hear them. Certainly not to the extent that Legolas could.

But the trees knew, to an extent, who he was and spoke to him often – now they spoke to him of disturbances, strangers in the wood and movements of his own people that seemed unusual to them. He, of course, knew why certain of his people were moving strangely, but the news of the strangers disturbed him.

He couldn't ask the trees for a description of these strangers. They didn't have eyes, for one thing. He guessed that the disturbances were Varalinde's foul servants, possibly the witch herself, but the song spoke of several different points of entry, including towards the south and the western borders, and that should not have been Varalinde.

Not that it was that unusual for outsiders to come into the wood. Normally he would have sent scouting parties to check on these strangers if those among his court with better understanding of the trees deemed it wise, if there was time for one of the beasts of the forest to bring him news or if the strangers simply overstayed their welcome, but now was not a good time for that.

Atheon recognised it too, but, following Thranduil's lead, turned his head away from the whispers with a snort.

"My king?"

Thranduil almost hadn't realised Ilirieth had been approaching him.

"Cousin," he greeted her. "How go the preparations?"

"Well, my lord." She came closer. "All of the convoys are on their way and with luck will not run into trouble. Within two days they will have reached all the outposts of our people."

So she said, but there was trouble in her voice.

"But… ?" he began for her.

She sighed. "But Uinwen and her sisters are both among the furthest from our halls, and the closest to the witch. I fear for them."

Hand stilling amongst Atheon's fur, Thranduil tried not to be too annoyed to have one of his own personal worries reminded to himself so soon after he'd just managed to focus on something else. If Varalinde did get to anyone before they could be warned, chances were it would be the sisters, but there wasn't anything he or anyone else could do about that now.

Using birds as messengers only worked so well. With a nod he sent his steed back into the trees to see to his own kin.

"Uthiriel is a formidable warrior," he said, listening to the hoofbeats fade into the distance.

Ilirieth did not deny it. But he guessed she would be thinking, as he was, _'not as formidable as Cirendrior, let alone the witch. The other three have only basic skill with a blade, and for it to be_ that _family that should suffer the first blow of the resurrected demon…_ '.

There was more than one reason the sisters had been on both of their minds, but Thranduil did not speak of that, probably in some vain hope that Ilirieth would not do so either and the two of them wouldn't have to talk about it. He'd had all the talk he'd wanted from Galion; Ilirieth, he liked to think, was of his blood – of his father's blood – and therefore made of sterner stuff.

"… she is," his cousin said, at length. "But we both know Uinwen... lacks caution."

Thranduil snorted. "That is not all she lacks."

Though Ilirieth had suggested to him more than once in the past that he should forget Uinwen's faux pas of what was now more than two centuries past, she did not bring it up now. And Ilirieth was normally not so timid, so he guessed she really wanted to talk to him about things he did not wish to speak of.

"Is there a reason you're still here, cousin?" he asked her pointedly.

She sighed. "Yes."

"Is it something that might not be better attended to by your husband?"

"Celedrion was not there."

She did not mean he was gone now. Rather that he had not been there when the _thing_ she wanted to discuss had occurred. Indeed, Thranduil had been well aware of that, seeing as he himself had been there instead. With the choice before him plainly to either suffer through Ilirieth's tentative foray into that poisonous topic or to plainly reject her, Thranduil wondered why he simply did not take the latter path he wished so much to take. Too much respect for one who was as a sister to him, he supposed, but would not have liked to admit.

Nevertheless –

"No, he wasn't. But the fact that I _was_ is something less than a guarantee that I will be able to give you whatever reassurances you need."

"Yes, Thranduil, but what of _your_ needs?"

Ah.

"You are concerned about me?" he asked her, as if the notion were ridiculous.

"Would you not be, in my position?"

"I suppose I would," he admitted, if lightly. "Indeed, I suppose I am somewhat concerned for you in turn, cousin, but what good does that concern do? Prompt us to tell each other things we already know?"

He spoke with bitter amusement, and yet, while his sightless eyes had foreseen a wealth of flowery platitudes about to be laid at his feet, Ilirieth did not go there. Instead he was surprised to hear her say,

"I am afraid, Thranduil."

That drew his attention sharply. Old habits died hard, and he made the illusion of his eyes pierce through her, but she did not falter.

"Varalinde was not supposed to come back," she said. "Your father's defeat of her was meant to be the end of it, even if we never did find out how he did it, but then that is what scares me."

He knew. It scared him too.

"That," she went on, "and that you will not send for aid."

"What aid?" he scoffed.

She shook her head. "Don't play me for a fool, you know what aid. All this preparation to send convoys to them for preservation, but you never once mentioned asking them for so much as a word of advice – "

"If they want to come into our domain and vanquish evil then I will not try to stop them," Thranduil said, for he knew indeed what aid she spoke of. "It is apparently what they do anyway, when they feel like it. But I will not go begging to the Noldor; not while I can still swing a sword of my own power, no matter what _magical artefacts_ they may be keeping beneath their jewelled gloves."

Bitterness seeped into those final words. There were four elven realms, more or less, left in Middle Earth and three elven rings of power. Thranduil knew he didn't have one himself, so it wasn't the work of a genius to deduce who did. But what did that matter, after all?

Ilirieth shook her head. "No one said anything about begging – "

"Besides," he interrupted her again. "Varalinde has made an enemy of Thorin Oakenshield now." He grinned. "So she surely stands no chance."

Much as he meant it as a joke, thinking back on how things had turned out five years ago he probably wouldn't have been surprised if Thorin ended up bumbling around the Grey Mountains falling through holes in the ice just when the witch would be about to take his head off with her spells until eventually Bilbo Baggins rescued him for the umpteenth time and some other competent person who'd somehow found themselves a friend of the dwarf-king turned up and killed Varalinde and her servants – all while Thranduil's people were trapped by the ice-sky.

But Ilirieth did not dignify his joke with acknowledgement and said yet again,

"Thranduil, I mean it, I am _scared._ Scared that it will be Celedrion she takes from me this time, or _you,_ as she has always wished to, because we do not have access to the powers now that once – "

"Then when I am taken you may send to our kin for as aid much as you wish," he interrupted casually, refusing to acknowledge her unsaid profession of love for him any more than she had his black humour, "For I would not intend that _Legolas_ would succeed me as ruler of this kingdom, should I perish."

There.

That shut her up. It was even the truth of the matter, for Thranduil loved Legolas far too much to wish the burden of kingship on him, and he imagined his son would have been relieved to hear it. Though elves often adhered to the rule of primogeniture as mortals did, there was no compulsion for them to do so, and amongst his kin it was Ilirieth, he judged, who was the best candidate for the role of his successor.

But then, that would have been only if he died, which he had no intention of doing.

No, in his mind this threat ended with him ripping his starlight gems from the witch's fading corpse as he watched her die on his sword.

…

And then throwing them into the whirlpool, never to torment him again.

…

…

… His face hurt.

His face hurt, but he was strong, and he judged that even a moderate vintage would do to take the edge off the pain that night.

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

Legolas was a strange elf.

It was too early for Aragorn to say so for sure, he knew, since he had not met the other elves of Mirkwood and so had no comparison yet to judge his friend's strangeness, but…

But he had met the elves of Lorien, who ethnically speaking should have born much similarity to their northern cousins, and in comparison to them, at least, Legolas was undeniably…

"It's too dark for the horses to see."

… odd. Had he only just noticed that? The horses had stopped in the middle of the path some time ago. Things like that were difficult to know what to say to.

"Yes," he ended up going with. "Should we stop here for the night?"

His companion was still visible in the darkness, shining with the inner light of the Firstborn. His blue eyes scanned the branches above them curiously, as if there was something of great interest among them.

Eventually, he said, "The trees are whispering. There are strangers in the wood."

Aragorn blinked. "Strangers? You mean me?"

Legolas shook his head. "You are with me, my friend, so they are not concerned. But there are others too, and I sense in the song that the Wood perceives malice from them."

"Orcs?"

Orcs he could handle, he thought, if they were not too many. He had run into their kind once before, and hated them well enough for how much they'd earned the hatred of his elven brothers.

"No, their presence is distinctive, and they almost never come this far north."

"Spiders?" He hoped not, remembering his companion's stories of them.

But Legolas shook his head again. "Most hibernate by this time, and their numbers have greatly decreased since Erebor was reclaimed, I am told."

"Bandits, then?"

This time the elf considered it for a moment. "That could be it. I fear they will not find this place a good location for a den of thieves." He smiled.

"Can you tell how far away they are, from the song?" Aragorn asked.

"Only that it is very far, and what direction – give or take – the malice comes from. I do not think it is anything for us to worry about, my father will probably have been made aware of it himself by now, and sent out scouts."

This he said as though to dismiss the worry, but the worry remained in his eyes all the same, the only thing Aragorn could see clearly in the darkness. He leaned over to touch the elf's arm, gently. Elves did not touch each other as much as mortals of any race did, though not because they felt any less affection for their friends – Aragorn knew this well. But as long as he did not touch skin to skin, most elves he had come across seemed to appreciate a casual contact for what it was.

"Then I'm sure it will be all right."

Legolas blinked at the hand on his arm for a second, then looked up and smiled. This was a far more normal-seeming reaction than he'd given the first time Aragorn had put a hand on his shoulder, when he'd stared for what must have been a full half-minute.

… he was staring again now, off into the distance, listening to the trees. Aragorn wondered then if the trees ever stopped talking, and if they did not how did those who seemed so finely tuned to their voices handle it when they lived in the centre of the forest?

Perhaps it was so much alignment with the trees that put Legolas out of alignment with others, for it was not only Aragorn he acted strangely around, nor only mortals. He, Legolas, and his elf brothers had met up in the fields west of Rivendell back in the spring, both parties travelling to Elrond's house, and Aragorn had had ample time to observe his interaction with the twins.

Unlike himself, Elladan and Elrohir had not seemed confused by Legolas' somewhat awkward nature, but more than once he'd seen them share a look while speaking with the prince. That look, he had perceived, had been a question from one brother to the other on how to respond to something Legolas had said, he did not remember what exactly now.

And yet for all that, it had been a merry time. Not for the first time he wished the twins had been able to travel with them through the wood – he prayed for their safety each night knowing that on their father's orders they were going around the northern border of the wood to scout at Gundabad and report on any orc activity. The hope was that there was little, since the fortress had been emptied to fight at Erebor five years ago, but orcs and goblins bred fast.

All this might have occupied Aragorn's thoughts for some time more, had Legolas not suddenly put his hand up as if to stop him from going anywhere and frown.

"There is a child in the wood," he announced.

Aragorn may have been a newcomer, but he knew well enough to know that did not bode well.

"Alone?" he asked.

"No," said Legolas, looking towards the south-east. "With the party of ill-intent the trees were whispering of."

He looked back at Aragorn, whose heart began to race, with anxious eyes.

"They are in distress, my friend."

 

 

*~*~*

 

 

The stories were not true, Garig told himself.

They were not.

They were cowards' superstitions. Boasts of glory-fiends. Elven lies.

_Mahal, the wretched child will not stop crying!_

"Again!" shouted Hargim suddenly over the wailing of the babe, throwing down his pack. "We've passed this tree again! This is the third time!"

Garig clenched his fists and grit his teeth so hard they hurt.

"Oh, how would you know?" Darig asked dismissively. "All these trees look the same."

"Not to a carpenter!" Hargim insisted. "Which is what I am when not galivanting off on doomed ventures that were never worth half as much as the pay that was promised in the first place!"

Of course Hargim was a wretched carpenter. Of course he was.

"You'll get your pay – "

"This has gone far past the point of squabbling over pay!" Hargim snapped. "Like as not we'll never leave this forest, and what good does coin do us in here!? Think you the trees will show us the way out in exchange for gold!?"

"Shut up, you fool," Garig ordered. He wasn't surprised that Hargim obeyed, and even recoiled from his words a bit. The dwarrow of his company were not as quick to question his decisions as they had been on that blasted boat.

Not since Zini had gone missing.

In all honesty, Garig actually hadn't killed him. It had been… well, he couldn't rightly say how long ago it had been. Winter's dawn had taken the leaves from the slowly recovering woodland around the Mountain, but here in the depths of Mirkwood the burnt brown foliage lingered and blotted out the sky. Even so enough light seeped through to let them know whether it was day or night, and yet… how many times had that change taken place?

Four? Five?

Not enough that they should have been out of the forest again. But almost as soon as they'd entered, Zini had voiced his regrets for doing so, and often. Not only that, but he had been loath to give up the halfbreed when it had been time to pass her to a different dwarf, as they'd agreed to set up a rotation for that purpose. He'd seen the look in the youth's eyes before he'd eventually relinquished her – the anticipation that harm would be done to her, and reluctance to let that happen.

Idiot had let himself grow attached. Had probably been thinking too hard about that and not hard enough on the direction he'd been going in when he'd wandered off, and now whatever happened to him was out of Garig's hands.

He'd probably die. It would be much better for the rest of them if he did. _No loose ends_ , Garig thought, glancing over at Throgim, who was on current brat-lugging duty. The half-breed's face was red and screwed up with whining, messy black curls sprinkled with bits of fallen leaves and twigs that no one had bothered to brush away, and poking through from them the elf-like points of her ears.

_Hideous_ , thought Garig. _Grandmother was right to set us on this path. She was right._

How could this weak, mixed-blood child of a Shire-rat thief be allowed to muddy the line of Durin? For all Garig knew, the people of the Shire were enough like elves that they allowed their dams to rule in their own right, and Baggins would expect Thorin Oakenshield to give the throne to the child herself, let alone a descendant!

And Thorin might well have been emasculated enough by now to go ahead with it. The nobles of their people would never allow it, of course, but it would be enough to cause strife and faction-fighting for decades.

"We _have_ passed this way before though," Agaf said, abruptly cutting into Garig's increasingly frustrated thoughts.

Darig rolled his eyes, but Garig was not so dismissive. Agaf had killed the maids with him, after all – he was probably the most dangerous member of their company, apart from Garig himself, and little loyalty or honour was in his heart. Garig held no doubts about that.

He rounded on him swiftly.

"Are you of the mind that you could do a better job, Agaf, son of Olaf?"

Agaf's eyes narrowed slowly, staring into Garig's eyes for too long before he answered.

"No. You are the leader of this company."

Garig knew in his gut then that Agaf had decided to cut his losses, and would now be plotting how best to do so for as long as it took before he figured something out or some other event changed things.

He couldn't wait around hoping that when that change from it would be for the better, and turn Agaf's fickle scheming around to his side again – he had to make sure that when the time came he was the one who struck the first blow. Darig and Arim would defend him, but Hargim and Throgim he was less sure of. As for the final dwarf of the company, Orm? He'd complained so much at the beginning that his ability to whinge had apparently dried up, and Garig didn't think he'd heard him say a word in days.

How many days? How long had it been since they'd walked into the shadow of these abominable trees?

_Forget the trees. Focus!_

"Feels like we're being watched," muttered Throgim, which was all they needed.

It felt like somebody said that every hour on the hour since they'd entered the forest, and Garig had grown tired of saying, 'yes, by squirrels!' and ordering the lot of them to keep moving.

So now he just growled, "Would you shut up!" and went back to his thoughts on Agaf.

The lout would have to go, but how – and when? When everyone was asleep? He didn't think Agaf was stupid enough to tuck himself in and shuffle off to the land of dreams on the best of days, let alone stuck deep in an elven wood on a venture that was rapidly going to the pit.

And then Throgim decided he wasn't so much a mouse to be cowed by Garig's order. In fact, if anything he sounded bored when he said,

"I'm _tired_. I've been carrying the babe since our last rest stop, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

The babe who was still wailing. _Still_. Garig almost felt sorry for Throgim for having to march right next to that constant, _constant_ crying.

Fortunately Darig groaned and trudged over to the older dwarf, grumbling, "Fine, give her here then, if your old bones are so burdened by a single baby."

Throgim scowled at the insult, but was truly tired enough not to protest and commit to carrying the child after all – which was apparently what Darig had been hoping for, judging by the disappointment of his face when he received no complaint.

Still, he lifted the noisy brat out of the carrying-pouch on Throgim's back, then tried to undo the clasps of the pouch one-handed. They all stopped, waiting for him to figure it out when the cry of a bird echoed in the distance, and Garig suddenly realised it was the first time they'd heard a bird in days.

Or maybe longer? No, it couldn't have been so long, could it? He glanced around in the direction of the noise, but then saw his companions all look off in a different way and wondered if any of them had heard anything at all. That sent a pulse of fear straight through the core of him, for either elf-magic was at work or the minds of his fellow dwarrow were starting to unravel from the strain.

The trees looked like they were getting closer together. He could hear wind, but the leaves were still.

_There_ is _something watching us_ , he thought.

Then he tried to pretend he hadn't thought that at all. Fed up with Darig's fumbling he stalked over to them and roughly grabbed the half-breed from his hands.

"Oh, give it here, you fool!" he snapped. Oakenshield's daughter cried somehow louder than before when he took her.

"Maybe she's hungry again?" Arim offered, as if Garig would care. He didn't remember when they'd last fed her.

In the meantime, Darig had flinched at his brother's aggression, and began tugging at the straps around Throgim with more haste, and less care than before. Garig could see that he was getting nowhere, the pouch tangled with Throgim's bow and quiver, and from the exasperation on his face so did Throgim. The crying went on, and on, and on…

"Hang on, brother, I'll have it in a moment," Darig said, now sounding frantic, as though something had happened in the last few seconds that had frightened him enough to lose his usual down-to-earth and steady nature.

Perhaps he'd seen the look in Garig's eyes.

Garig's ears were beginning to ring. The air in the forest was making the babe's wailing feel like it was shaking his brain. At last he could not take it, and clamped his hand down over the lower half of her face.

"I'll shut you up, you little useless – "

Sharp teeth clamped down on his index finger.

Instantly Garig yelled, yanked his hand away, and in utter indignation he straight-out threw the bundle in his arms a foot or so away.

She landed on the ground with a soft thud and a barely audible snap, on her side, and her head clunked against the root of a tree as half the dwarrow gasped and all stood stock still. For a moment Garig thought that might have been the end of it; the brat was only half one of their people, which was to say not really one at all, and the infants of lesser races might have died even from so short a fall.

But then after a breath she moved, and then began to scream twice as loud as before. Garig hadn't stopped in these short seconds, reaching for the strap that bound his mattock to his shoulders.

"Garig!" hissed Arim, too much of a coward to support or stop him, unsurprisingly.

Garig only snarled back, like an animal, and swung his mattock around from where it rested on his shoulders, raising it high above his head.

"You get back, you worm," he spat at his cousin. "Enough's enough, and I swear to the Maker that I'll not stand for the insult any longer! – I'll bash the little bitch's brains in!"

 

 

*~*~*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *So, Garig is a poopoo-head and in this chapter he throws Roselin on the ground, breaking an unspecified bone before gearing up to kill her off for good - wherein the chapter ends, on a cliffhanger. Ain't I a stinker?


End file.
